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Comparison of Repair of Sublethal Damage in Cultured Chinese Hamster Cells Exposed to Sulfur Mustard and X-rays¹

Radiation Biology Section, Laboratory of Physiology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20014

Survival curves of Chinese hamster cells exposed to graded doses of sulfur mustard are sigmoid; they start with a shoulder and become exponential. As in the case of X-irradiation, this suggests that cells must accumulate damage for a lethal drug effect, and, therefore, survivors are initially damaged sublethally.

In spite of the fact that the survival dependence on position in the growth cycle differs for sulfur mustard and X-rays, in both cases surviving cells repair sublethal damage rapidly as they proceed to progress in their growth cycles. (This is clear with asynchronous as well as synchronized cells.) Further, as in the case of X-irradiation, the repair of sublethal sulfur mustard damage can be demonstrated readily at a temperature (24°C) at which very little cell progression occurs.

Although sulfur mustard may not be typical of cancer chemotherapy drugs, and cultured Chinese hamster cells may not be typical of cells of interest in man, these results demonstrate the possible importance of repair of damage when therapy involves fractionated drug treatments.

¹ We gratefully acknowledge postdoctoral support for F. Mauro from the Institute of Genetics, University of Rome, and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome; and from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

² Present address: Division of Radiation Biology, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Mo. 63110.

Received 11/ 7/67. Accepted 2/22/68.