Study on the automatic analysis of dicentric chromosome biodosimetry

Objective To investigate a dose response curve based on a genetic workstation with automatic analysis system of dicentric chromosome assay (DCA) for establishing a high speed dose estimation method. Methods Peripheral blood from three healthy volunteers was irradiated in vitro using 60Co γ-rays, and then lymphocytes were cultured and fixed on slides using the standard protocol for DCA. Dicentric chromosome in metaphase cells was analyzed automatically with the genetic workstation and confirmed manually, and the dose response curve of automated dicentric chromosome was fitted. Dicentric chromosome of another peripheral blood sample irradiated with different doses was manually analyzed to verify the accuracy of the above automated DCA. Results The yield of automated DCA was well fitted by an equation Y=0.018 06D2+ 0.012 79D+ 0.000 489 1 with a correlation coefficient R2=0.961. The biological dose of radiation could be accurately estimated by this dose response curve within a few minutes. Conclusions We had successfully established a new dosimetry method by analyzing dicentric chromesome automatically, which can save a lot of manual analysis time and hence has important significance for emergency rescue in nuclear accidents. Key words: Ionizing radiation; Dicentric chromosome; Automatic scoring; Biological dosimetry