Contributions of various types of damage to inactivation of T4 bacteriophage by protons.

Mean doses for damage induced by 3.7-MeV protons in T4 phage were measured for the following effects: inactivation, killing, adsorption, DNA injection, capsid rupture with DNA release, and single- and double-strand DNA breaks. These effects have been related to phage survival in the same experiment because of the variability inherent in such measurements. The experiments were carried out in nutrient broth, phosphate buffer, and phosphate buffer plus histidine as suspension media. The following conclusions can be drawn: (i) DNA double-strand breakage is the dominant cause of inactivation in nutrient broth; (ii) scavengers protect the DNA inside the capsid to only a small degree; (iii) indirect actions affect functions associated with proteins; (iv) DNA release, as measured by capsid rupture, accounts for only a small percentage of the loss of viability; (v) essentially all DNA from adsorbed phage is injected even though a large proportion of the DNA contains double-strand breaks.