No abstract provided. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Scope and contents: Seven adenoviruses, including oncogenic and nononcogenic serotypes from human and simian hosts, were utilized to investigate their effects upon the chromosomes of human and Syrian hamster cells. Human cells support adenovirus multiplication while hamster cells do not support replication of infectious adenovirus. The chromosome damage induced by adenoviruses in abortive infection of hamster cells was compared with respect to the effect of virus dose upon the incidence and the types of chromosome aberrations. The effect of different adenoviruses upon the amount and types of chromosome damage was also examined. The effect of adenovirus infection upon DNA synthesis of human and hamster cells was examined, and the relevance of adenovirus-induced chromosome aberrations to the etiology of human cancers is discussed.