Uncertainty Associated with the Determination of Induced Strand Breaks in Plasmid DNA Due to Mixed "thermal n + γ Radiation Fields

The effects of ionising radiation are studied through the observation of single- and double strand breaks of the DNA molecule. The DNA plasmids that can be found in different forms depending on the received dose: supercoiled (S), circular (C) and linear (L). Supercoiled DNA consists of the undamaged plasmid, circular resulting from single- strand breaks (SSBs), and linear resulting from double-strand breaks (DSBs). Different types of radiobiological models in order to predict effects of radiation induced DNA damage were developed in literature. The "Hit and Target" theory is based on the use of Poisson statistical treatments to describe the response curves depending radiation dose. This model [1] is even used to determine the yield of single strand breaks (GSSB) and double strand breaks (GDSB) induced by ionizing radiation in plasmids.The aim of this work is show the strand breaks yields induction in plasmid DNA by mixed "thermal n +γ" radiation with 95% of confidence interval