BONE-MARROW HEMATOPOIETIC-CELLS APOPTOSIS IN PERSONS WITH ACUTE RADIATION-SICKNESS

Bone marrow specimens obtained at autopsy from patients who died of ac ute radiation sickness after the Chernobyl accident were investigated. Hematopoietic cells death by apoptosis within the period of postirrad iation regeneration was revealed. Its incidence was found to accompany the beginning of the recovery processes and to correlate with their a ctivity. It is suggested that apoptosis may be not only a satellite of mitosis but may play its own active role as a stimulus of repair mito tic activity.