Investigation on the correlation between energy deposition and clustered DNA damage induced by low-energy electrons

This study presents the correlation between energy deposition and clustered DNA damage, based on a Monte Carlo simulation of the spectrum of direct DNA damage induced by low-energy electrons including the dissociative electron attachment. Clustered DNA damage is classified as simple and complex in terms of the combination of single-strand breaks (SSBs) or double-strand breaks (DSBs) and adjacent base damage (BD). The results show that the energy depositions associated with about 90% of total clustered DNA damage are below 150 eV. The simple clustered DNA damage, which is constituted of the combination of SSBs and adjacent BD, is dominant, accounting for 90% of all clustered DNA damage, and the spectra of the energy depositions correlating with them are similar for different primary energies. One type of simple clustered DNA damage is the combination of a SSB and 1-5 BD, which is denoted as SSB + BD. The average contribution of SSB + BD to total simple clustered DNA damage reaches up to about 84% for the considered primary energies. In all forms of SSB + BD, the SSB + BD including only one base damage is dominant (above 80%). In addition, for the considered primary energies, there is no obvious difference between the average energy depositions for a fixed complexity of SSB + BD determined by the number of base damage, but average energy depositions increase with the complexity of SSB + BD. In the complex clustered DNA damage constituted by the combination of DSBs and BD around them, a relatively simple type is a DSB combining adjacent BD, marked as DSB + BD, and it is of substantial contribution (on average up to about 82%). The spectrum of DSB + BD is given mainly by the DSB in combination with different numbers of base damage, from 1 to 5. For the considered primary energies, the DSB combined with only one base damage contributes about 83% of total DSB + BD, and the average energy deposition is about 106 eV. However, the energy deposition increases with the complexity of clustered DNA damage, and therefore, the clustered DNA damage with high complexity still needs to be considered in the study of radiation biological effects, in spite of their small contributions to all clustered DNA damage.

Direct effects of low-energy electrons on including sulfur bonds in proteins: a second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation (MP2) theory approach

In an attempt to describe how low-energy electrons (LEEs) damage the polypeptide chain at disulfide bridges, ab initio electronic structure estimates on LEE interactions with cysteine-cysteine (Cys-Cys) disulfide bond model have been performed. Here, the fundamental mechanisms in LEE impression on S-S and C-S bond ruptures in the Cys-Cys model have been discussed. The electronic energy was calculated using the MP2 method with a Hartree-Fock exchange during the SCF and the Møller-Plesset correlation energy correction on the converged HF orbitals with 6-311++G(d,p) atomic orbital basis set. Further, six more sets of diffuse s and p functions with extra basis on the sulfur and relevant carbon atoms were used to describe the added electron to located away as much as possible from the nuclei in anions. The bonds rupture mechanisms involve the primary placement of LEEs to the π* orbital of the model to construct the shape-resonance state following by an adiabatic or nonadiabatic electron migration to either S-S or C-S bond σ* orbital. The formed radical anion undergoes S-S or C-S bonds cleavage by energy barriers of ca. 5.68 and 9.19 kcal/mol, respectively, to produce either (2-amino-2-carboxyethyl) sulfanyl (cysteine radical), aziridine-2-carboxylic acid or mercapto-L-cysteine lesions. In SMD solvent, calculations suggest electronically stable of the formed π* and σ* states by solvation, something that induces either S-S or C-S bond break even when the electron energy is near zero. The required barrier energy of only 0 to < 0.4 eV indicates a high kinetic favorable fragmentation for involved sulfur polypeptides with LEEs.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Research on the proximity functions of microdosimetry of low energy electrons in liquid water based on different Monte Carlo codes

PURPOSE

The proximity function is an important index in microdosimetry for describing the spatial distribution of energy, which is closely related to the biological effects of organs or tissues in the target area. In this work, the impact of parameters, such as physic models, cut-off energy, and initial energy, on the proximity function are quantitated and compared.

METHODS

According to the track structure (TS) and condensed history (CH) low-energy electromagnetic models, this paper chooses a variety of Monte Carlo (Monte Carlo, MC) codes (Geant4-DNA, PHITS, and Penelope) to simulate the track structure of low-energy electrons in liquid water and evaluates the influence of the electron initial energy, cut-off energy, energy spectrum, and physical model factors on the differential proximity function.

RESULTS

The results show that the initial energy of electrons in the low-energy part (especially less than 1 keV) has a greater impact on the differential proximity function, and the choice of cut-off energy has a greater impact on the differential proximity function corresponding to small radius sites (generally less than 10 nm). The difference in the electronic energy spectrum has little effect on the result, and the proximity functions of different physics models show better consistency under large radius sites.

CONCLUSIONS

This work comprehensively compares the differential proximity functions under different codes by setting a variety of simulation conditions and has basic guiding significance for helping users simulate and analyze the deposition characteristics of microscale electrons according to the selection of an appropriate methodology and cut-off energy.