The correlation between mutation frequency and cell survival following different mutagenic treatments.

A direct mathematical relationship between mutation frequency per survivor and cell survival is derived from theoretical considerations of the molecular effects of radiation in a cell. It is shown that the relationship is satisfied by analysis of the various data on radiation induced mutations available in the literature. The analysis implies that a common type of lesion may lead to mutation and cell death and is derived on the assumption that radiation-induced double strand breaks in DNA are the critical lesions. The mathematical relationship is independent of the way in which the lesion which leads to mutations and cell death is induced, so the analysis has consequently been applied to other mutagenic treatments such as UV light and chemicals. It is concluded that, although the lesions induced by chemicals may not be the same as those induced by radiation, it is probable that for the chemicals considered common basic damage to the DNA molecule is implicated as the critical lesion.