Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 6, December 1997

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Molecular Changes in the Offspring of Liquidators Who Emigrated to Israel from the Chernobyl Disaster Area

Hava-Shifra Weinberg,1 Eviatar Nevo,1 Abraham Korol,1 Tzion Fahima,1 Gad Rennert,2 and Semion Shapiro2

1Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel; 2National Kupat Holim Cancer Control Center, Carmel Medical Center and Technion Faculty of Medicine, Haifa, Israel

Abstract
The primary goal of this research was to reveal de novo mutations in the liquidators (cleanup personnel) who emigrated to Israel from the Chernobyl disaster area. We used genome fingerprinting simple sequence repeat-anchored polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and random amplified polymorphic DNA PCR (RAPD PCR). The methodology involved a combination of RAPD PCR, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and silver staining, with arbitrarily primed PCR. Use of microsatellite markers appears to be the most promising technique for high sensitivity analysis. The analysis involved DNA isolated from the blood of experimental and control subjects (involving both offspring who were born before or after the disaster and their parents). Our studies have reproducibly detected new bands that appeared in the children born after the disaster. No such bands appeared in the children born in the same family before the accident or in the children of control families who had not been exposed to radiation. -- Environ Health Perspect 105(Suppl 6):1479-1481 (1997)

Key words: Chernobyl, de novo mutations, liquidators, RAPD PCR, AP PCR, PAGE, silver staining

This paper is based on a presentation at the International Conference on Radiation and Health held 3-7 November 1996 in Beer Sheva, Israel. Abstracts of these papers were previously published in Public Health Reviews 24(3-4):205-431 (1996). Manuscript received at EHP 7 April 1997; accepted 30 June 1997.

This work is part of the Ph.D. thesis of H. Weinberg. We are grateful for the financial support of the Authority for Advanced Study at the University of Haifa, to the Israeli Discount Bank Chair of Evolutionary Biology, and the Ancell-Teicher Research Foundation for Genetics and Molecular Evolution.

Address correspondence to Dr. H-S. Weinberg, Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel. Telephone: 9724 8240448. Fax: 972 4 8246554. E-mail: rabi101@haifa.uvm.ac.il

Abbreviations used: AP PCR, arbitrarily primed PCR; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; RAPD PCR, random amplified polymorphic DNA PCR; SS, silver staining; SSR, simple sequence repeat.

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