Response of the very early mouse embryo to low levels of ionizing radiations

✍ Scribed by Rugh, Roberts ;Grupp, Erika

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1959
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 915 KB
• Volume: 141
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-104X
• DOI: 10.1002/jez.1401410308

✦ Synopsis

It has been assumed that the pre-implantation or pre-differentiated mouse embryo is relatively radioresistant, and that congenital anomalies rarely if ever follow exposure to ionizing radiations. This presumption may have been due in part to the high level of lethality at this stage. Since the presence of such early embryos is seldom recognized in the human, and even diagnostic radiology may, on occasion, involve exposures of as much as 5 or 10 roentgens to the gravid uterus, it seemed wise to investigate the incidence of deaths and anomalies at extremely low doses of x-rays to the very early mouse embryo.

MATERIALS AND METHOD

CF1 female mice were placed with males of the same strain at 5 P.M. and examined the next morning at 9 A.M. for the presence of vaginal plugs, a sign of successful copulation. Those with such plugs were segregated and x-irradiated either within the next hour or on the following day. Those that were x-irradiated within the hour after segregation, were regarded as exposed at a time about 0.5 day after conception, since most matings occur around midnight. Those exposed the following day would presumably have embryos %Based on work performed under Contract AT-30-1-GEW-70 of the U. 5. Atomie Energy Commission.