PRIMARY EXPLANTS OF HUMAN UROEPITHELIUM SHOW AN UNUSUAL RESPONSE TO LOW-DOSE IRRADIATION WITH CO-60 GAMMA-RAYS

Recent results using very low doses of radiation have suggested that t here is a hypersensitive region where cultures show an enhanced level of cell killing leading to a non-monotonic survival curve. This effect has been observed at doses below 2 Gy in mammalian systems and at muc h higher doses in insect cells, In this paper Re report observation of the effect in primary human uroepithelial cell cultures, The effect w as measured using a postirradiation proliferation assay where irradiat ed explants of standard size were allowed to proliferate for 14 days a fter exposure to Co-60 gamma irradiation, By 14 days the majority of c ultures derived from explants irradiated with 2-5 Gy showed little evi dence of growth inhibition and cell numbers approached or even exceede d those obtained in the controls, There was, however, a significant re duction in cell number and growth rate in all cultures exposed to dose s lower than 1 Gy. Oncoprotein (p53, c-myc, bcl-2, p21 ras) and EGFR e xpression were also measured in these cultures and were significantly increased, Morphological evidence of apoptosis was present in all irra diated cultures at 4 h after exposure, but this persisted for longer p eriods in cultures exposed to low doses. (C) 1995 by Radiation Researc h Society