[The relationship between the radiosensitivity of DNA replicative synthesis and the formation of sister chromatid exchanges].

It has been found that irradiation in doses 0.5-2.0 Gy does not enhance the frequency of sister chromatid exchanges in cells of patients with Down's syndrome and ataxia-telangiectasia compared to the normal cells. In the case of ataxia, this phenomenon was accompanied with radioresistant replicative DNA synthesis, whereas in two cases of Down's syndrome the replicative DNA synthesis was found to be as radiosensitive as in the norm. According to these data, the mechanism of sister chromatid exchanges proposed in our previous publication (Pleskach et al., 1988) seems to be rather doubtful.