Gene

Biology

Epigenetics

Thyroid carcinoma

Cancer research

Thyroid cancer

Transgenerational epigenetics

DNA methylation

Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

Epigenomics

Environmental health

Physiology

Genetics

Transcriptome

Carcinogen

DNA repair

Radiation exposure

Population

Internal medicine

Oncology

Medicine

DNA damage

Nuclear medicine

Carcinogenesis

Cancer

Gene expression

Thyroid

Science

Genomics of radiation-induced damage The potential adverse effects of exposures to radioactivity from nuclear accidents can include acute consequences such as radiation sickness, as well as long-term sequelae such as increased risk of cancer. There have been a few studies examining transgenerational risks of radiation exposure but the results have been inconclusive. Morton et al. analyzed papillary thyroid tumors, normal thyroid tissue, and blood from hundreds of survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and compared them against those of unexposed patients. The findings offer insight into the process of radiation-induced carcinogenesis and characteristic patterns of DNA damage associated with environmental radiation exposure. In a separate study, Yeager et al. analyzed the genomes of 130 children and parents from families in which one or both parents had experienced gonadal radiation exposure related to the Chernobyl accident and the children were conceived between 1987 and 2002. Reassuringly, the authors did not find an increase in new germline mutations in this population. Science , this issue p. eabg2538 , p. 725

Radiation-related genomic profile of papillary thyroid carcinoma after the Chernobyl accident