Biodosimetry for high dose accidental exposures by drug induced premature chromosome condensation (PCC) assay.

The conventional dicentric assay does not provide an accurate dose estimate in the case of accidental exposure to ionizing radiation above 6 Gy due to mitotic delay and poor mitotic index. The present study aims to establish a simple and rapid dose assessment technique based on scoring of rings and fragments in PCC spreads of stimulated lymphocytes. Human peripheral blood lymphocytes were gamma irradiated to different doses (6.2-24.5 Gy), cultured for two days with PHA and were forced to condense prematurely using 500 nM Okadaic acid (OA). The chromosome spreads were prepared, stained with Giemsa and observed under a microscope. The PCC index, PCC rings, and PCC fragments were scored for each dose point to arrive at the dose effect curve for various end points such as induction of rings and fragments and dicentrics. The PCC index varied from 12-18% up to 18 Gy and thereafter dropped to 6-8% at higher doses. The dose dependent increase in rings and fragments was found to be linear with a slope of 0.054+/-0.001 Gy(-1) for rings and 0.45+/-0.03 Gy(-1) for PCC fragments. An experiment was carried out to simulate partial-body exposure by mixing 10 Gy in vitro irradiated blood with un-irradiated blood in different proportions. The ratio of frequency of damaged cells among the total number of cells analyzed was found to be a good index of partial-body exposure. The culture duration was extended to 72 h to overcome the cell cycle delay induced by high doses of radiation. The conventional dicentrics rings and fragments also showed a dose response at high doses. The response can be best fitted to a linear model with a slope of 0.28+/-0.0007 Gy(-1) for the induction of dicentrics. However, long culture duration, technical skill and time required to analyse multi-aberrant cells makes the dicentric assay less suitable for high dose exposures requiring a rapid dose estimate. The PCC assay can be performed in 50 h with biodosimetric information about the irradiated fraction in cases of acute radiation exposures. The automated finding of PCC spreads significantly increased the speed of scoring PCC fragments.

Chromosomal aberration analysis in chronically exposed radiation workers.

We performed a chromosomal aberration analysis on blood samples of 15 radiation workers by scoring dicentric aberrations. These workers were chronically exposed to cumulative doses of approximately 500 mSv over a period of two to three decades. The biological doses estimated using the linear coefficient of the in vitro dose/response curve based on dicentric frequency varied from 0 to 259 mGy, even though all the radiation workers had received approximately the same physical dose--i.e., 500 mSv. In all cases of chronic exposure, the estimated biological doses were found to be lower than the measured physical doses. The measured physical doses were corrected by applying the biphasic decay pattern of lymphocytes and also taking into consideration the time course of accumulation of doses in each individual. The corrected physical doses thus obtained were then compared with the estimated biological doses, and a reasonably good correlation was found between these two sets of values. However, on the whole, the corrected physical doses were found to be smaller than the estimated biological doses in most of the cases. This observation suggests that the kinetics of turnover of lymphocytes in conditions of chronic exposure may be slower than estimated so far in various studies involving exposures to high doses, wherein the estimation of life span of lymphocytes was carried out in patients undergoing radiotherapy.

Cyto-genotoxicity assessment of potential radioprotector, 3,3'-diselenodipropionic acid (DSePA) in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and human peripheral blood lymphocytes.

Our previous study showed that 3,3'-diselenodipropionic acid (DSePA), a simple, stable, and water-soluble organoselenium exhibiting glutathione peroxidase (GPx)-like activity offered good radioprotection under in vitro and in vivo conditions. Herein, we investigated the anti-genotoxic effect of DSePA in model cellular systems such as Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line and human peripheral lymphocytes after exposure to γ-radiation. The measurements on the induction of γ-H2AX foci and micronuclei frequency in the cell nuclei indicated that pretreatment with DSePA significantly prevented the radiation induced DNA damage or genotoxicity and subsequent cytotoxicity without exerting its own toxicity. The maximum protective effect of DSePA was seen at a pre-treatment concentration of 3 µg/ml. The mechanistic investigations in CHO cells revealed that DSePA pretreatment prevented the radiation induced ROS generation, lipid peroxidation and subsequent apoptosis in these cells. Further, it was seen to augment the mRNA expressions of GPx2 significantly and GPx4 marginally without causing much change in the total GPx activity after radiation exposure. These results suggested the roles of GPx2 and GPx4 in DSePA mediated radioprotection. In conclusion our results confirm the nongenotoxic nature of the DSePA and validate its radioprotective efficacy and mechanisms of action in model cellular systems.

Differential modifying effects of food additive butylated hydroxytoluene toward radiation and 4-nitro-quinoline 1-oxide-induced genotoxicity in yeast.

The modifying effect of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) on 60Co gamma radiation and 4-nitro-quinoline 1-oxide-induced gene conversion and back mutation frequencies was investigated using diploid yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae D7. Cells were exposed to 100 or 400 Gy in the presence of 0.025-0.25 mM BHT. BHT exhibited radioprotection and significantly reduced radiation-induced gene conversion and back mutation frequencies as well as cell killing. In another set of experiments, cells were simultaneously treated with 0.025-0.1 mM BHT and 0.5 µM 4-NQO. BHT significantly enhanced 4-NQO-induced gene conversion and back mutation frequencies. BHT post-treatment did not modify radiation-induced genetic events but enhanced 4-NQO-induced back mutation frequencies, indicating its potential to act as a tumor-promoting agent with 4-NQO.