[en] At high radiation doses, breaks in the DNA are considered the critical lesions in initiation of radiation- induced cancer. However, at the very low radiation doses relevant for the general public, the induction of such breaks will be rare, and other changes to the DNA such as DNA methylation may play a role in radiation responses. DNA methylation is the addition of a methyl group to cytosine in the DNA, usually where a cytosine is adjacent to a guanine (CpG). Methylation affects the way in which genes are read, and is inherited from cell to cell on replication. It is known that high dose radiation can cause changes in methylation in the genome but less is known about the effect of low dose radiation on methylation. We developed a sensitive assay to measure the levels of DNA methylation across the mouse genome by analysing a stretch of DNA sequence within Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements-1(LINE1) that comprise a very large proportion of the mouse and human genomes. Using bisulphite modification followed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCP) and high- resolution melt analysis, a very large pool of DNA sequences from throughout the genome can be studied indicating gain or loss of methylation. We validated the assay in vitro using the chemical demethylating agent 5'-aza-2' -deoxycytidine with changes at as few as 3% of CpG's being reproducibly detected. We have demonstrated a difference in the baseline levels of in vivo DNA methylation between male and female mice and between different tissues. Our initial results suggest no significant short-term or long-term changes in global DNA methylation after low dose whole-body X-radiation of 10 -Gy or 10 mGy, with a significant transient increase in DNA methylation observed 1 day after a high dose of 1 Gy. If the low radiation doses tested are inducing changes in global DNA methylation, these would appear to be smaller than the natural variation observed between the sexes and following the general stress of the sham-irradiation procedure itself.