[ RadSafe ] Bacterium can survive doses of ionising radiationthousands of times stronger than would kill a human

[Wes Van Pelt]

Rainer and All,
The full article by Daly et al. can be downloaded at
http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/5/4/pdf/10.1371_journal.pb
io.0050092-L.pdf 
Daly suggests high Mn concentration in radiodurans bacteria protects its
protein from damage by radiation. The damage mechanism is protein oxidation
which prevents DNA repair. 
This research bolsters the biological credibility of my paper,
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS AMONG LUNG CANCER,RADON EXPOSURE AND ELEVATION
ABOVE SEA LEVEL—AREASSESSMENT OF COHEN’S COUNTY LEVEL RADON STUDY, where I
conjecture that decreased atmospheric oxygen concentrations at higher
altitude protects against radiation damage. 

Best regards,  Wes
Wesley R. Van Pelt, PhD, CIH, CHP 
Wesley R. Van Pelt Associates, Inc.  
 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Rainer.Facius at dlr.de
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 2:58 PM
To: crispy_bird at yahoo.com; Fred.Dawson199 at mod.uk; radsafe at radlab.nl;
srp-uk at yahoogroups.com
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] Bacterium can survive doses of ionising
radiationthousands of times stronger than would kill a human

>From WIKIPEDIA: "Michael Daly of the Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences suggests that the bacterium uses manganese to protect itself
against radiation damage."

John, 

thank you for this additional pointer. In the meantime Daly et al (2007)
corroborated the above conjecture by showing that Mn protects the repair
enzymes(!) from being degraded by high doses.

<quote>We present the case that protein, rather than DNA, is the principal
target of the biological action of IR in sensitive bacteria, and extreme
resistance in Mn-accumulating bacteria is based on protein protection.
<endquote>


Once more you see the by now common place finding that - contrary to still
most text-books and to the credo of LNT proponents - not the primary DNA
damage determines the fate of the irradiated organism but the
sophistications of its repair systems. Therefore I also thank Fred Dawson
for his pointer which led me to the PLoS article.

Kind regards, Rainer 


Daly MJ, Gaidamakova EK, Matrosova VY, Vasilenko A, Zhai M, et al. Protein
oxidation implicated as the primary determinant of bacterial
radioresistance. PLoS Biol 5#4 (2007)e92.

Dr. Rainer Facius
German Aerospace Center
Institute of Aerospace Medicine
Linder Hoehe
51147 Koeln
GERMANY
Voice: +49 2203 601 3147 or 3150
FAX:   +49 2203 61970