Pierre Cloutier

TL;DR: It is shown that reactions of such electrons, even at energies well below ionization thresholds, induce substantial yields of single- and double-strand breaks in DNA, which are caused by rapid decays of transient molecular resonances localized on the DNA's basic components.

TL;DR: Collisions of 0-4 eV electrons with thin DNA films are shown to produce single strand breaks, which support aspects of a theoretical study by Barrios et al. indicating that such a mechanism could produce strand breaks in DNA.

TL;DR: Electron-stimulated desorption of anions from thin films of linear and supercoiled DNA is investigated in the range 3-20 eV and Resonant structures are observed, attributed to dissociative electron attachment.

TL;DR: DNA damage by low-energy electrons (LEE) was examined using a novel system in which thin solid films of oligonucleotide tetramers were irradiated with monoenergetic electrons under ultrahigh vacuum and the distribution of nonmodified products suggests a mechanism of damage involving initial electron attachment to nucleobase moieties, followed by electron transfer to the sugar-phosphate backbone, and subsequent dissociation of the phosphodiester bond.

TL;DR: The yields of all desorbing anions clearly show that electron resonances contribute to the damage of all DNA bases bombarded with 5–40 eV electrons, and indicates that adenine is the least sensitive base to slow electron attack.