A Distributional Basis for the Variation in Killing Efficiencies by Different Tritiated Compounds Incorporated into Escherichia coli

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Abstract
The decay of tritium incorporated as thymidine into the DNA of bacteria is known to be more lethal than is the decay from tritium incorporated as uridine, leucine, or histidine. These differences can be attributed to different degrees of irradiation of the DNA of the cell resulting from different cellular distribution of the labeled compounds. It is unnecessary to postulate that the transmutation in the case of tritium has any significant radiobiological consequences. It may only be concluded that the radiobiological target for the tritium decay is centrally located within the cell, as DNA is.