Mutagenic mechanism on ion implantation of plants

Ion beam implantation, as a new mutation technique, has been widely used in mutation breeding, and great achievements have been attained in agriculture and fermentation industry. The mechanism underlying ion beam induced mutagenic effects has been the topic of research in recent years. In this paper, we focus on the initial physical process of ion implantation into organisms, discussing that energy deposit, mass deposit and charge transfer of the implanted ions into target organisms are the main contributions to the bio-effects. Recent advances in the study of transferring of damaging signals in plant sample are also included. It has been observed that targeted ion implantation of shoot apical meristem (SAM) of Arabidopsis embryos induces damage of root apical meristem (RAM), indicating a long distant bystander effect in intact organism. Further studies showed that generation of reactive oxygen species upon ion implantation and auxin-dependent transcription processes could play important roles in the observed bystander effect. (author)