Protective effect of α-tocopherol succinate against early hematopoietic injury in mice with acute radiation sickness / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the protective effect of α-tocopherol succinate (α-TOS) against early hematopoietic injury in mice with acute radiation sickness. Methods Male C57BL/6J mice 6-8 weeks old were randomly divided into normal group, irradiation group and α-TOS group (n=10), 400mg/kg of α-TOS was subcutaneous injected into the mice of α-TOS group 24 hours before irradiation, while vehicle was given to the mice of irradiation group. The 30-day survival rate of mice having received 9.0Gy irradiation, and the mean survival time of non-survivors were recorded. Analysis of peripheral blood was performed in mice receiving 6.5Gy irradiation at days 1, 4, 7, 10, 14, 18, 22, 31 and 45, while the number of bone marrow colony-forming cells (CFCs) and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells were counted at 2-hour and 24-hour after irradiation. Bone marrow cells collected from 6.5Gy irradiated mice and EGFP transgenic mice were mixed in a ratio of 101, and then transplanted into lethal dose-irradiated mice, and the proportion of EGFP positive cells in the peripheral blood was recorded after 35 days. Results α-TOS raised the survival rate and mean survival time of mice suffering from 9.0Gy irradiation, improved the recovery of the peripheral blood picture of mice suffering from 6.5Gy irradiation, and increased the number of bone marrow colony-forming cells and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in the mice 24 hours after 6.5Gy irradiation. The competitive transplantation experiments showed that α-TOS markedly diminished the proportion of EGFP positive cells in the peripheral blood in lethal dose-irradiated mice at day 35. Conclusion α-TOS could effectively protect the hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells from radiation injury in γ-ray irradiated mice, promote the recovery of peripheral blood cells, and improve the survival rate.