There
are evidences to show that response to ionizing radiations have genetic
influence. To investigate this further, reciprocal F1
hybrids were genereted by crossbreeding the radiation-susceptible BALB/c
mouse strain with resistant C57BL/6 in a sexspecific manner
(BALB/c♂×C57BL/6♀ = B6BcF1; C57BL/6♂× BALB/c♀ =BcB6F1).
These hybrids were compared with each other and to the parental strains
with respect to transcriptional responses to low-dose ionizing
radiation exposure (LDIR). The two F1 hybrids showed drastic
differences in their gene expression profiles to ionizing radiation
exposure particularly in case of the genes involved in DNA damage
response and repair process. Also, the inheritance pattern of the gene
expression was found to be complex and could not be explained solely on
the basis of parental expression pattern. It was concluded that there is
a differential transmission of susceptible trait alleles from the
parents to F1 progeny which is dependent on the sex of the parent mouse strain used to set up the crosses and other environmental factors.