| Radiation-induced stress, either from visible or UV light, is strongest at midday. We found that, in the absence of stress or time cues, Euglena gracilis Z was the most resistant to UV-C and UV-B at subjective midday, whether judged from immediate or reproductive survival. The circadian UV-resistance rhythms were free-running in stationary cultures under 1-h light/1-h dark cycles or continuous darkness, indicating that cell-cycle dependent DNA susceptibility to UV was not involved. We moreover examined what was the primary cause of the circadian U-V resistance, estimated as the immediate cell survival. The half-maximal lethal dose (LD50) of UV-C at subjective midday (the most resistant phase) was 156 J/m(2), which is similar to 3-fold that at subjective... |
