Due to concerns surrounding potential large-scale radiological events, there is a need to determine robust radiation signatures for the rapid identification of exposed individuals, which can then be used to guide the development of compact field deployable instruments to assess individual dose. Metabolomics provides a technology to process easily accessible biofluids and determine rigorous quantitative radiation biomarkers with mass spectrometry (MS) platforms. While multiple studies have utilized murine models to determine radiation biomarkers, limited studies have profiled nonhuman primate (NHP) metabolic radiation signatures. In addition, these studies have concentrated on short-term biomarkers (i.e., <72 h). The current study addresses the need for biomarkers beyond 72 h using a NHP model. Urine samples were collected at 7 days postirradiation (2, 4, 6, 7 and 10 Gy) and processed with ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) MS, acquiring global metabolomic radiation signatures. Multivariate data analysis revealed clear separation between control and irradiated groups. Thirteen biomarkers exhibiting a dose response were validated with tandem MS. There was significantly higher excretion of l-carnitine, l-acetylcarnitine, xanthine and xanthosine in males versus females. Metabolites validated in this study suggest perturbation of several pathways including fatty acid β oxidation, tryptophan metabolism, purine catabolism, taurine metabolism and steroid hormone biosynthesis. In this novel study we detected long-term biomarkers in a NHP model after exposure to radiation and demonstrate differences between sexes using UPLC-QTOF-MS-based metabolomics technology.

Biodosimetry is an essential tool for providing timely assessments of radiation exposure. For a large mass-casualty event involving exposure to ionizing radiation, it is of utmost importance to rapidly provide dose information for medical treatment. The well-established cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) assay is a validated method for biodosimetry. However, the need for an accelerated sample processing is required for the CBMN assay to be a suitable population triage tool. We report here on the development of a high-throughput and miniaturized version of the CMBN assay for accelerated sample processing.

Although it has been shown that exposure to HZE particles disrupts cognitive performance when tested 2–4 weeks after irradiation, it has not been determined whether exposure to HZE particles acutely affects cognitive performance, i.e., within 4–48 h after exposure. The current experiments were designed to determine the acute effects of exposure to HZE particles (¹⁶O and ⁵⁶Fe) on cognitive performance and whether exposure to HZE particles affected learning or memory, as well as to understand the relationship between acute changes in the levels of NOX2 (a measure of oxidative stress) and COX2 (a measure of neuroinflammation) in specific brain regions and cognitive performance. The results of these studies indicate that the acute effects of radiation exposure on cognitive performance are on memory, not learning. Further, the acute effects of exposure to HZE particles on oxidative stress and neuroinflammation and their relationship to cognitive performance indicate that, although the effects of exposure to both ⁵⁶Fe and ¹⁶O are widespread, only changes in specific regions of the brain may be related to changes in cognitive function.

Whole-abdominal radiotherapy (WART) is a primary method for managing gastrointestinal cancers that have disseminated into intra-abdominal tissues. While effective, this approach is limited because of the increased toxicity to normal tissue associated with combined WART and full-dose chemotherapy regimens. Recent studies have demonstrated a survival advantage in a novel treatment paradigm that allows for the safe use of full-dose systemic chemotherapy in combination with low-dose fractionated radiotherapy (LDFRT). Traditionally, radiation doses greater than 120 cGy have been used in radiotherapy because lower doses were thought to be ineffective for tumor therapy. However, we now know that LDFRT can produce hyper-radiosensitivity (HRS), a phenomenon where cells undergo apoptosis at radiation doses as low as 15 cGy, in a number of proliferating cells. The objectives of our current study were to determine whether LDFRT can induce HRS in gastrointestinal cancer cells and to identify biomarkers of chemopotentiation by LDFRT. Our data indicate that three consecutive daily fractions of 15 cGy produced HRS in gastric cancer cells and potentiated a modified regimen of docetaxel, cisplatin and 5′-fluorouracil (mDCF). Colony survival assays indicated that 15 cGy was sufficient to kill 90% of the cells when LDFRT was combined with mDCF whereas a dose almost 10 times higher (135 cGy) was needed to achieve the same rate when using conventional radiotherapy alone. RT² PCR Profiler™ array analysis indicated that this combined regimen upregulated dual oxidase 2 (DUOX2), an enzyme functioning in the production of hydrogen peroxide, without upregulating genes involved in DNA repair. Moreover, downregulation of DUOX2 increased radioresistance at every radiation dose tested. In addition, our data indicate that reactive oxygen species (ROS) increase up to 3.5-fold in cells exposed to LDFRT and mDCF. Furthermore, inhibition of NADPH oxidase abrogated the killing efficiency of this combined regimen. Taken together these data suggest that chemopotentiation by LDFRT in gastric cancer cells may be due, at least in part, to increased ROS production (DUOX2) without upregulation of the DNA repair machinery. These data thus provide a rationale for further explorations of potential clinical applications of LDFRT, such as in WART, as a chemopotentiator for advanced and metastatic gastric cancers.

Radical formation and trapping of radicals in X-irradiated crystals of rhamnose at 6 K were investigated using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) and ENDOR-induced EPR (EIE) techniques, complemented with periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The two major radical species at 6 K were the O4-centered alkoxy radical and the intermolecularly trapped electron (IMTE), previously also detected by other authors. The current experimental results provided hyperfine coupling constants for these two species in good agreement with the previous data, thus providing a consistency check that improves their credibility. In addition to the O4-centered alkoxy radical and the IMTE, the C3-centered and C5-centered hydroxyalkyl radicals are the most prominent primary species at 6 K. The C3-centered radical appears in two slightly different conformations at 6 K, designated C and D. The C5-centered radical exhibits a coupling to a methyl group with tunneling rotation at 6 K, and analysis of one of the rotational substates (A) of the spin system yielded an understanding of the structure of this radical. Visible light bleaching of the IMTE at 6 K led to the C3-centered radical C, and thermal annealing above 6 K resulted in a conversion of the C to the D conformation. In addition, thermal annealing releases the IMTE, apparently resulting in the formation of the C2-centered radical. It is possible that the thermal decay of the IMTE also contributes to a small part of the C3-centered radical (D) population at 85 K. There are several other products trapped in rhamnose crystals directly after irradiation at 6 K, among which are resonance lines due to the C2 H-abstraction product. However, these other products are minority species and were not fully characterized in the current work.

X-band rapid-scan electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra from tooth enamel samples irradiated with doses of 0.5, 1 and 10 Gy had substantially improved signal-to-noise relative to conventional continuous wave EPR. The radiation-induced signal in a 60 mg of a tooth enamel sample irradiated with a 0.5 Gy dose was readily characterized in spectra recorded with 34 min data acquisition times. The coefficient of variance of the calculated dose for a 1 Gy irradiated sample, based on simulation of the first-derivative spectra for three replicates as the sum of native and radiation-induced signals, was 3.9% for continuous wave and 0.4% for rapid scan.

This article provides a historical assessment of the role of X-ray therapy in the treatment of bronchial asthma. This analysis revealed that X-ray therapy in the treatment of bronchial asthma spanned the first six decades of the 20th century, and involved nearly 6,000 patients in published clinical case studies. Patients selected typically had at least moderate to severe asthma and were refractory to other commonly employed treatments. The results of more than 60 studies indicated that about 70% of patients had rapid and marked reductions in clinical symptoms with about half of these patients showing complete symptom relief. The duration of the beneficial responses was variable but was approximately 1–6 months for about 50% of the benefited patients, and between 1 to 4 years for the upper 25% of benefited patients. The use of X rays to treat such patients fell into disfavor during the 1950s due to mounting concerns over possible enhanced risks of cancer that coincided with the discoveries and use of antihistamine medications, antibiotics and the methyl xanthine bronchodilators aminophylline and theophylline.

Astronauts traveling outside Earth's magnetosphere risk exposure to charged particle radiation that may cause neurophysiological changes and behavioral deficits. Although proton particles comprise a large portion of the space radiation environment, little has been published on the effects of low-dose proton radiation on central nervous system function. In the current study, we irradiated young male mice with 0.5 Gy 150 MeV protons and assessed the effects on behavior and hippocampal neurophysiology. Spatial learning ability, a sensitive behavioral marker of hippocampal damage, was assessed using the water maze and Barnes maze before irradiation and repeatedly 3 and 6 months after irradiation. Evoked field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs) and population spikes, long-term potentiation (LTP) and spontaneous oscillations (SOs) triggered by incubation with Mg² -free media (reflecting interictal epileptiform activity) were assessed 9 months after irradiation in vitro in hippocampal slice preparations. Irradiated mice exhibited impaired reversal learning in the water maze compared to control mice 6 months after irradiation. Proton radiation did not affect LTP, but significantly increased fEPSP slopes and reduced the incidence of SOs 9 months after irradiation. These findings suggest that a single exposure to low-dose proton radiation can increase synaptic excitability and suppress the propensity for epileptiform activity. Such findings of functional alterations in the irradiated mouse hippocampus have implications for extended manned space missions planned in the near future.

Deterministic thyroid radiation doses due to iodine-131 (¹³¹I) intake were reconstructed in a previous article for 11,732 participants of the Belarusian–American cohort study of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases in individuals exposed during childhood or adolescence to fallout from the Chernobyl accident. The current article describes an assessment of uncertainties in reconstructed thyroid doses that accounts for the shared and unshared errors. Using a Monte Carlo simulation procedure, 1,000 sets of cohort thyroid doses due to ¹³¹I intake were calculated. The arithmetic mean of the stochastic thyroid doses for the entire cohort was 0.68 Gy. For two-thirds of the cohort the arithmetic mean of individual stochastic thyroid doses was less than 0.5 Gy. The geometric standard deviation of stochastic doses varied among cohort members from 1.33 to 5.12 with an arithmetic mean of 1.76 and a geometric mean of 1.73. The uncertainties in thyroid dose were driven by the unshared errors associated with the estimates of values of thyroid mass and of the ¹³¹I activity in the thyroid of the subject; the contribution of shared errors to the overall uncertainty was small. These multiple sets of cohort thyroid doses will be used to evaluate the radiation risks of thyroid cancer and noncancer thyroid diseases, taking into account the structure of the errors in the dose estimates.

Radiation-induced bystander effects have been observed in vitro and in cell and tissue culture models, however, there are few reported studies showing these effects in vivo. To our knowledge, this is the first reported study on bystander effects induced by microbeam irradiation in an intact living mammal. The mouse ear was used to investigate radiation-induced bystander effects in keratinocytes, utilizing a 3 MeV proton microbeam (LET 13.1 keV/μm) with a range in skin of about 135 μm. Using a custom-designed holder, the ear of an anesthetized C57BL/6J mouse was flattened by gentle suction and placed over the microbeam port to irradiate cells along a 35 μm wide, 6 mm long path. Immunohistochemical analysis of γ-H2AX foci formation in tissue sections revealed, compared to control tissue, proton-induced γ-H2AX foci formation in one of the two epidermal layers of the mouse ear. Strikingly, a higher number of cells than expected showed foci from direct irradiation effects. Although the proton-irradiated line was ~35 μm wide, the average width spanned by γ-H2AX-positive cells exceeded 150 μm. Cells adjacent to or in the epidermal layer opposite the γ-H2AX-positive region did not exhibit foci. These findings validate this mammalian model as a viable system for investigating radiation-induced bystander effects in an intact living organism.

Recombinant human interleukin-12 (rHuIL-12) mitigates the hematopoietic subsyndrome of acute radiation syndrome (HSARS) after total body irradiation (TBI) in a nonhuman primate (NHP) model of HSARS. The mechanism for this effect appears to involve multiple effects of rHuIL-12 on hematopoiesis. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine hematological nadirs and survival across our three NHP completed studies. Animals were irradiated (700 cGy) and treated with a single subcutaneous injection of vehicle (n = 64) or rHuIL-12 (50–500 ng/kg; n = 108) 24–25 h after irradiation, or with daily subcutaneous injections of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF; 10 μg/kg/day) for 18 days starting 24–25 h after exposure (n = 26). Blood samples were obtained at various time points up to day 60 after TBI. Lymphocytes, neutrophils and platelets were significantly lower in nonsurvivors than in survivors in the overall sample and in each treatment group (P < 0.001 for each comparison, Wilcoxon rank-sum test). Lymphocyte nadir was the strongest and most consistent predictor of death by Spearman's rank correlation. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis of death and threshold hematologic nadir values (where nadir values less than or equal the threshold are predictive of death) showed that a threshold of 0.08 × 10⁹/L for lymphocytes had the largest positive predictive value of death (97.2% and 92.5% for the control and rHuIL-12 groups, respectively) and high sensitivity (76.1% and 62.7%, respectively), consistent with human radiation victims data. The current findings suggest that enhanced early bone marrow regeneration resulting in increases in nadir values for all major blood cell types may be the main mechanism of action by which rHuIL-12 mitigates the lethality of HSARS.