Genomic Instability in Human Lymphocytes Irradiated with Individual Charged Particles: Involvement of Tumor Necrosis Factor α in Irradiated Cells but not Bystander Cells

Abstract Moore, S. R., Marsden, S., Macdonald, D., Mitchell, S., Folkard, M., Michael, B., Goodhead, D. T., Prise, K. M. and Kadhim, M. A. Genomic Instability in Human Lymphocytes Irradiated with Individual Charged Particles: Involvement of Tumor Necrosis Factor α in Irradiated Cells but not Bystander Cells. Radiat. Res. 163, 183–191 (2005). Exposure to ionizing radiation can increase the risk of cancer, which is often characterized by genomic instability. In environmental exposures to high-LET radiation (e.g. 222Ra), it is unlikely that many cells will be traversed or that any cell will be traversed by more than one α particle, resulting in an in vivo bystander situation, potentially involving inflammation. Here primary human lymphocytes were irradiated with precise numbers of 3He2+ ions delivered to defined cell population fractions, to as low as a single cell being traversed, resembling in vivo conditions. Also, we assessed the contribution to genomic instability of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor ...