Mammalian cells as biomonitors of UV-exposure

The biological UV-dosimeter RoDos is being developed, which weights the UV- radiation according to its DNA damaging potential. The RoDos dosimeter is b ased on rodent cells growing on a UV-transparent petriPERM(R) foil and a sp ecial device which allows irradiation with different doses of W-light, assu ring cellular growth under identical spatial arrangement of the cells. Cell s under investigation are Chinese hamster ovary cells AA8 (repair proficien t) acid UV5 (defective in nucleotide excision repair) grown in monolayer cu lture. Cells growing on the petriPERM(R) foil were exposed in the RoDos dev ice to increasing doses of WC (254 nm) or simulated sunlight (SSL) of vario us UVB/UVA proportions. After exposure cells were further incubated for thr ee days, fixed and stained. The influence of irradiation on "cell growth" i s determined by image analysis as relative absorbance (A) of the irradiated to unirradiated areas of the petriPERM(R) dish. The resulting action spect ra for cell growth inhibition after exposure to simulated sunlight of diffe rent qualities were measured with the RoDos device for repair-proficient AA 8 cells. The radiation sensitivity of the rodent cell system decreases with longer wavelengths of simulated sunlight, having different proportions of UVB and UVA. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.