Radiation sensitivity of lymphocytes from healthy individuals and cancer patients as measured by the comet assay |
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Authors: | Wolfgang-Ulrich Müller Thomas Bauch Georg Stüben Horst Sack Christian Streffer |
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Institution: | Institut für Medizinische Strahlenbiologie, Universit?tsklinikum, 45122 Essen, Germany e-mail: wolfgang-ulrich.mueller@uni-essen.de Tel.: +49-201-7234152, Fax: +49-201-7235966, DE Klinik und Poliklinik für Strahlentherapie, Universit?tsklinikum, 45122 Essen, Germany, DE
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Abstract: | Lymphocytes of healthy volunteers (n=24) and of tumour patients (n=30, 18 of whom had experienced severe side-effects) were irradiated with x-rays in vitro. DNA damage was analysed after 0.25–2
Gy and DNA repair after 2 Gy, and quantification of both endpoints was done by the comet assay. The individual differences
in radiation-induced DNA damage as well as in the repair kinetics were observed to be striking for both healthy donors and
tumour patients. After a repair time of 3 h, following 2 Gy x-irradiation, some of the healthy volunteers showed no residual
DNA damage at all in their lymphocytes, whereas others revealed about 30%. There was no indication that our results were affected
by either age, gender or smoking habits. Slow repair kinetics and high amounts of residual damage were characteristic for
many but not all tumour patients who had experienced severe side-effects in their normal tissues during or after radiotherapy
(n=18). Our conclusion is that those individuals showing poor DNA repair characteristics in the lymphocytes following in vitro
irradiation, have a high probability of being radiosensitive. The opposite conclusion is not necessarily true: if repair is
effective, this does not mean that the individual is radioresistant, because factors other than impaired repair may cause
radiosensitivity.
Received: 3 May 2000 / Accepted: 1 December 2000 |
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