Research on Contemporary Damage Effects of Carbon Ion Beams with Different LET Irradiation on Dry Seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana

Aimed to study the biological effects of carbon ion beams with different linear energy transfer (LET) values provided by Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), dry seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana (Columbia-WT) were irradiated and a series of biological effects of postembryonic development, such as survival rate, primary root length, hypocotyls length and number of seeds per silique, were investigated. The results showed that, under the radiation condition of the same LET value, the survival rate, root length, hypocotyls length and number of seeds per silique were decreased with the increasing dose. In addition, under the radiation conditions with different LET values, but same dose, the extent of the decline of the survival rate, root length, hypocotyls length and number of seeds per silique were reinforced with the increasing LET. It was also found that high LET radiations inhibited the subsequent growth and development of Arabidopsis thaliana severely. In brief, it was suggested that the optimum dose of carbon ion beam with 50 keV/μm value on Arabidopsis thaliana dry seeds was 200 Gy. This research complemented the preliminary theoretical foundation for the comparative study of the highest mutation efficiency of carbon ion beam irradiations at IMP, CAS(Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences).