Mutagenic Effects of Heavy-Ion Beam Irradiation to Plant Genome

Heavy-ion beams have been used as an effective mutagen in plants. Various studies have extended our understanding of the mutagenic effects of heavy-ion beam irradiation on the plant genome. Heavy-ion beams can be characterized by the linear energy transfer (LET) value, and the LET-dependent mutagenic effects are observed in plant survival, mutation frequency, and mutation spectrum. When we integrate the results of the mutagenic effects obtained from experiments using different detection methods, we must consider a bias, depending on the experimental system. For example, the plant materials, developmental processes, and heredity of induced mutations must be considered. In this review, we organized the mutagenic effects from the perspective of irradiated plant materials and the heredity of the induced mutations.