Relative biological effectiveness of accelerated heavy ions for induction of morphological transformation in Syrian hamster embryo cells

Syrian hamster embryo cells were used to study the morphological transformation induced by accelerated heavy ions with different linear energy transfer (LET) ranging from 13 to 400 keV/mu m. Exponentially growing cells were irradiated with C-12 or Si-28 ion beams generated by the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC), then inoculated to culture dishes. Morphologically altered colonies were scored as transformants. Over the LET range examined, the frequency of transformation induced by the heavy ions increased sharply at very low doses no greater than 5 cGy. The relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of the heavy ions relative to X-rays first increased with LET, reached a maximum value of about 7 at 100 keV/mu m, then decreased with the further increase of LET. Our findings confirmed that high LET heavy ions are much more effective than X-rays for the induction of in vitro cell transformation.