Long-lived inflammatory signaling in irradiated bone marrow is genome dependent.

Ionizing radiation is carcinogenic, but genotype is a key determinant of susceptibility. Mutational DNA damage is generally attributed to cause disease, but irradiation also affects multicellular interactions as a result of poorly understood bystander effects that may influence carcinogenic susceptibility. In this study, we show that the bone marrow of irradiated mice will retain the ability to kill hemopoietic clonogenic stem cells and to induce chromosomal instability for up to 3 months after irradiation. Chromosomal instability was induced in bone marrow cells derived from CBA/Ca mice, a strain that is susceptible to radiation-induced acute myeloid leukemia (r-AML), but not in C57BL6 mice that are resistant to r-AML. Similarly, clonogenic cell lethality was exhibited in C57BL/6 mice but not CBA/Ca mice. Mechanistic investigations revealed that these genotype-dependent effects involved cytokine-mediated signaling and were mediated by a cyclooxygenase-2-dependent mechanism. Thus, our results suggested that inflammatory processes were responsible for mediating and sustaining the durable effects of ionizing radiation observed on bone marrow cells. Because most exposures to ionizing radiation are directed to only part of the body, our findings imply that genotype-directed tissue responses may be important determinants of understanding the specific consequence of radiation exposure in different individuals.

Radiation-induced delayed bystander-type effects mediated by hemopoietic cells.

Genetic lesions and cell death associated with exposure to ionizing radiation have generally been attributed to DNA damage arising as a consequence of deposition of energy in the cell nucleus. However, reports of radiation-induced bystander effects, in which DNA damage is produced in nonirradiated cells as a consequence of communication with irradiated cells, indicate additional mechanisms. At present, most information has been obtained using in vitro systems, and the in vivo significance of bystander factors is not clear. In this study we show that signals generated in vivo in the bone marrow of CBA/Ca mice irradiated with 4 Gy gamma rays 24 h previously, but not immediately postirradiation, are able to induce DNA damage and apoptosis in nonirradiated bone marrow cells. The signaling mechanism involves FasL, TNF-alpha, nitric oxide and superoxide and macrophages are implicated as a source of damaging signals. Such delayed bystander-type damage demonstrates the importance of studying tissue responses subsequent to the radiation exposure as well as effects at the time of irradiation when considering the mechanisms underlying the consequences of radiation exposures.

Chromosomal instability in unirradiated hemaopoietic cells induced by macrophages exposed in vivo to ionizing radiation.

The tumorigenic potential of ionizing radiation has conventionally been attributed to DNA damage in irradiated cells induced at the time of exposure. Recently, there have been an increasing number of reports of damage in unirradiated cells that are either neighbors or descendants of irradiated cells, respectively, regarded as bystander effects and genomic instability and collectively termed nontargeted effects. In this study, we show that descendants of normal murine hemaopoietic clonogenic stem cells exposed to bone marrow-conditioned medium derived from gamma-irradiated mice exhibit chromosomal instability unlike the descendants of directly gamma-irradiated cells. The instability is expressed in bone marrow cells of the radiation-induced acute myeloid leukemia (r-AML) susceptible strain (CBA/Ca) but not in mice resistant to r-AML (C57BL/6). Furthermore, crossgenetic experiments show the induction of the instability phenotype requires both the producer and responder cells to be of the susceptible CBA/Ca genotype. Macrophages are the source of the bystander signals, and the signaling mechanism involves tumor necrosis factor-alpha, nitric oxide, and superoxide. The findings show a genotype-dependent chromosomal instability phenotype induced by radiation-induced macrophage-mediated bystander signaling. As the majority of accidental, occupational, and therapeutic exposures to ionizing radiation are partial body exposures, the findings have implications for understanding the consequences of such exposure.