SOME RADIATION EFFECTS ON DNA AND ITS CONSTITUENTS

Abstract
ESR evidence indicates that hydrogen-addition reactions on the ringed-groups, especially on the thymine ring, are possibly of significance in radiation damage to DNA. Production of secondary free radicals in DNA by H-addition reactions depends upon physical conditions as well as upon chemical impurities and probably on the nature and constitution of DNA itself, i.e., upon the relative amounts and the sequence of the different nucleotides in the DNA polymer and upon the number of its strands, whether single or double.