Nucleic Acid Changes in Hemopoietic Tissues of Rats after Combined Radiation-Burn Injury / 第三军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

Rats were subjected to 15% body surface area third degree burns combined with 2 , 4 , 6 , and 8 Gy irradiation respectively. 48 hours after injury, the DNA and RNA contents of the bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen and peripheral blood were found to have marked reduction, which became more marked when the dosage of the radiation was increased. Furthermore, it was found that the DNA content decreased more rapidly than the RNA content and the chnage of RNA was more marked in the hemopoietic tissues than in the peripheral blood. Nucleic acid reduction occurred more severely following 2 Gy irradiation than following 15% BSA third degree burns. After the combined iujury of 8 Gy irradiation and burns, th? reduction of nucleic acids in all the above-mentioned tissues exceeded 50%.The mechanism of the changes of necleic acids in the hemopoietic tissues after combined injury of radiation and burns was discussed. Radiation played a more important role than burns in resulting in the reduction but the synergistic effect of burns could not be neglected and could be clearly demonstrated.