Lack of dose rate modification (0.0049 vs. 0.12 Gy/min) of fission-neutron-induced neoplastic transformation in C3H/10T1/2 cells.

Clonogenic survival and neoplastic transformation of asynchronous cultures of C3H/10T1/2 cells were used to assay the effect of dose protraction of reactor-produced fission neutrons. Cells were exposed to eight neutron doses ranging from 0.05 to 0.9 Gy delivered at 11.7 or at 0.49 cGy/min. For each dose level, high and low dose rate irradiations were performed on the same day. At each dose a similar effectiveness of fission neutron irradiation at high or low dose rates was measured for both cell survival and transformation. The combined high and low dose-rate data were analysed by two- or three-parameter models. Depending on the model used, values of the effectiveness per unit dose derived as parameters of linear terms of the respective dose-response curves were 0.9-1.2 Gy-1 for clonogenic survival and 5-8 x 10(-4) Gy-1 for neoplastic transformation. It is concluded that the modification of fission neutron dose-response curves by dose rate is negligible or absent in the range of doses and dose rates examined, in contrast to results with other sources of fission or fast neutrons.