Tritium: a model for low level long-term ionizing radiation exposure

The somatic, cytogenetic and genetic effects of single and chronic tritiated water (HTO) ingestion in mice was investigated. This study serves not only as an evaluation of tritium toxicity (TRITOX) but due to its design involving long-term low concentration ingestion of HTO may serve as a model for low level long-term ionizing radiation exposure in general. Long-term studies involved animals maintained on HTO at concentrations of 0.3 ..mu..Ci/ml, 1.0 ..mu..Ci/ml, 3.0 ..mu..Ci/ml or depth dose equivalent chronic external exposures to /sup 137/Cs gamma rays. Maintenance on 3.0 ..mu..Ci/ml resulted in no effect on growth, life-time shortening or bone marrow cellularity, but did result in a reduction of bone marrow stem cells, an increase in DLM's in second generation animals maintained on this regimen and cytogenetic effects as indicated by increased sister chromatid exchanges (SCE's) in bone marrow cells, increased chromosome aberrations in the regenerating liver and an increase in micronuclei in red blood cells. Biochemical and microdosimetry studies showed that animals placed on the HTO regimen reached tritium equilibrium in the body water in approximately 17 to 21 days with a more gradual increase in bound tritium. When animals maintained for 180 days on 3.0 ..mu..Ci/ml HTO were placed on a tap water regimen, the tritium level in tissue dropped from the equilibrium value of 2.02 ..mu..Ci/ml before withdrawal to 0.001 ..mu..Ci/ml at 28 days. 18 references

Genetic and hematopoietic effects of long-term tritiated water (HTO) ingestion in mice

The positive effects seen using the somewhat insensitive dominant lethal test system and the effects seen on the blood-forming cells indicates that at least in the mouse there is a hazard in the continuous ingestion of HTO at a concentration of 3 $mu$CCi/ml. A direct comparison of these results to the human drinking an equivalent amount of HTO is impossible due to the obvious differences in water metabolism between the two species. Until further experimentation at lower levels of ingestion are completed, it is difficult to comment concerning the significance of these results as related to current concepts of maximum permissible concentration. Studies are now underway examining the possible effects of lower concentrations of chronic HTO ingestion. (auth

Summary update of the Brookhaven tritium toxicity program with emphasis on recent cytogenetic and lifetime-shortening studies

A number of years ago a multiparameter program to evaluate the toxicity of tritiated water (HTO) was undertaken in the Medical Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The results of most of these studies have been published and will receive brief attention. Emphasis will be placed on the unpublished studies involving the induction of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE's) in bone marrow of mice, new biochemical information, and preliminary results on lifetime-shortening and carcinogenesis. In brief, male Hale-Stoner Brookhaven (HSB) mice maintained on HTO concentrations ranging from 3.0 to 30.0 ..mu..Ci/ml exhibited essentially the same number of SCE's per cell throughout their lifetime. Control mice showed a decrease in number of SCE's with age. The lack of a dose-response effect and the constant level of SCE's in HTO mice as compared to controls will be discussed. In the carcinogenesis study C57BL/6J male mice received various x-ray or HTO regimens. Mortality data from these and other studies in which CBA/Ca/BNL mice received single x-ray exposures or equivalent integrated dose exposures by single HTO injections will be discussed. 25 refs., 4 figs

The temperature-flow renormalization group and the competition between superconductivity and ferromagnetism

We derive a differential equation for the one-particle-irreducible vertex functions of interacting fermions as a function of the temperature. Formally, these equations correspond to a Wilsonian renormalization group scheme which uses the temperature as an explicit scale parameter. Our novel method allows us to analyze the competition between superconducting and various magnetic Fermi surface instabilities in the one-loop approximation. In particular this includes ferromagnetic fluctuations, which are difficult to treat on an equal footing in conventional Wilsonian momentum space techniques. Applying the scheme to the two-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model we investigate the RG flow of the interactions at the van Hove filling with varying next-nearest neighbor hopping t'. Starting at t'=0 we describe the evolution of the flow to strong coupling from an antiferromagnetic nesting regime over a d-wave regime at moderate t' to a ferromagnetic region at larger absolute values of t'. Upon increasing the particle density in the latter regime the ferromagnetic tendencies are cut off and the leading instability occurs in the triplet superconducting pairing channel.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

Density functional theory based screening of ternary alkali-transition metal borohydrides: A computational material design project

The dissociation of molecules, even the most simple hydrogen molecule, cannot be described accurately within density functional theory because none of the currently available functionals accounts for strong on-site correlation. This problem led to a discussion of properties that the local Kohn-Sham potential has to satisfy in order to correctly describe strongly correlated systems. We derive an analytic expression for the nontrivial form of the Kohn-Sham potential in between the two fragments for the dissociation of a single bond. We show that the numerical calculations for a one-dimensional two-electron model system indeed approach and reach this limit. It is shown that the functional form of the potential is universal, i.e., independent of the details of the two fragments.We acknowledge funding by the Spanish MEC (Grant No. FIS2007-65702-C02-01), “Grupos Consolidados UPV/EHU del Gobierno Vasco” (Grant No. IT-319-07), and the European Community through e-I3 ETSF project (Grant Agreement No. 211956).Peer reviewe

Meta-analysis identifies seven susceptibility loci involved in the atopic March

Eczema often precedes the development of asthma in a disease course called the a 'atopic march'. To unravel the genes underlying this characteristic pattern of allergic disease, we conduct a multi-stage genome-wide association study on infantile eczema followed by childhood asthma in 12 populations including 2,428 cases and 17,034 controls. Here we report two novel loci specific for the combined eczema plus asthma phenotype, which are associated with allergic disease for the first time; rs9357733 located in EFHC1 on chromosome 6p12.3 (OR 1.27; P=2.1 × 10 a'8) and rs993226 between TMTC2 and SLC6A15 on chromosome 12q21.3 (OR 1.58; P=5.3 × 10 a'9). Additional susceptibility loci identified

ARIA 2016: Care pathways implementing emerging technologies for predictive medicine in rhinitis and asthma across the life cycle

The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) initiative commenced during a World Health Organization workshop in 1999. The initial goals were (1) to propose a new allergic rhinitis classification, (2) to promote the concept of multi-morbidity in asthma a

Tritium radiobiology research in the US DOE program

The history of the original US Atomic Energy Commission, its replacement, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and the present Department of Energy's interest and sponsorship of tritium radiobiology is reviewed beginning in 1971 and continuing through 1986. In particular, the four remaining US Department of Energy, Division of Health and Environmental Research programs are described in some detail

TRITOX: a multiple parameter evaluation of tritium toxicity

The increased use of nuclear reactors for power generation will lead to the introduction of tritium into the environment. The need for assessing possible immediate and long-term effects of exposure to this tritium led to the development of a broad program directed towards evaluating the possible somatic and genetic effects of continuous exposure to tritiated water (HTO). Among the parameters measured are the genetic, cytogenetic, reproductive efficiency, growth, nonspecific lifetime shortening, bone marrow cellularity and stem cell content, relative biological effectiveness as compared to /sup 137/Cesium gamma exposure, and related biochemical and microdosimetric evaluations. These parameters have been evaluated on animals maintained on HTO at 10 to 100 times the maximum permissible concentration (0.03 - 3.0 ..mu..Ci/ml) for HTO. Dominant lethal mutations, chromosome aberrations in regenerating liver, increased sister chromatid exchanges in bone marrow and reduction in bone marrow stem cell content have been observed at the higher concentrations. The relative biological effectiveness for HTO ingestion as compared to external /sup 137/Cesium gamma exposures has been found to be between 1 and 2