Paternal monoenergetic neutron exposure results in abnormal sperm, and embryonal lethality and transgenerational tumorigenesis in mouse F1 offspring.

Experiments were conducted to assay whether monoenergetic neutron-induced genetic damage in parental germline cells can give rise to development of cancer in the offspring. Seven-week-old C3H male mice were irradiated with monoenergetic neutrons with energy levels of 0.2 or 0.6 MeV at doses of 0, 50, 100 or 200 cGy. Two weeks after irradiation, when the male mice showed an increased incidence of sperm abnormalities, they were mated with virgin 9-week-old C57BL females. Litter size was decreased and embryo lethalities were increased in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, tumor incidence in male offspring born to male mice irradiated with 25 or 50 cGy at 0.6 MeV showed a tendency for increase as compared to the non-irradiated group value. Liver tumors in the 50 cGy group were significantly increased (P=0.03). It is concluded that the increased hepatic tumor risk in the F1 generation may have been caused by genetic transmission of some hepatoma-associated trait(s) induced by monoenergetic neutron irradiation.