Relative biological effectiveness of neutrons for inducing somatic cell mutations in tradescantia pretreated with boron compound

The biological effectiveness of neutrons in the induction of somatic cell mutations was studied in Tradescantia 4430. Inflorescences, normal or pretreated with chemicals containing boron, were irradiated in the air with neutrons (0-0.2 Gy) from a 252Cf source. A group of normal inflorescences were also irradiated with 0-0.5 Gy of X-ray as a standard beam. The maximal RBE value was 7.2 for inducing gene mutations in the normal inflorescence. For the induction of lethal mutations, the maximal value of RBE changed from 6.2 to 34.3 with pretreatment of boron compound. RBE for the induction of apoptotic cells increased from 1.6 to 5.6 due to the boron pretreatment. The present study provides an experimental proof that boron compound causes the modification of radio-response in cells