Following accidental exposure of humans to irradiation, the dose to different parts of the body is often highly heterogeneous, and regions of the skin may receive substantially greater doses than other parts of the body. The goal of this project is to develop biological approaches that can be used to assess dose to the skin, with a particular emphasis on DNA damage in cells of the dermis and epidermis. Our previous work has demonstrated that it is possible to detect micronuclei (MN) in skin fibroblasts from both rats and humans taken weeks after irradiation. Thus, our hypothesis is that, following exposures due to accidents or terrorist-instigated incidents, it will be possible to estimate skin dose using a small punch (3 mm) biopsy that could be taken within a number of days or weeks after radiation exposure. The project will have four specific aims.
The first aim builds on our previous studies and will refine our existing techniques to establish optimal methods to measure MN obtained from dermal fibroblasts using the smallest possible biopsy, working initially with mice and then with human skin. The second specific aim will be to investigate the potential for predicting the dose received by the skin, using measurements of radiation-induced foci (RIF) of proteins in the cell nuclei performed directly on sections obtained from skin biopsies. Again, the work will be initiated in skin from various different strains of mice (wild-type and with known genetic defects that influence radiosensitivity e.g. SCID and ATM knock-outs) and will be followed up in studies of human skin. The third specific aim will extend these techniques to examine exposure to high LET radiation (thermal neutrons). The focus of these studies will be to obtain information on RBE values relevant to accidental exposure using these techniques. The final specific aim will integrate these studies in skin with techniques being developed in other projects in the Center in animals given whole body irradiation or partial body irradiation, which simulate the conditions expected following exposure of humans in an accidental or terrorist-instigated radiation exposure; we will use the derived endpoints to examine the ability of mitigating agents developed in the program to mitigate against skin injury.
| Zhang, Steven B; Yang, Shanmin; Zhang, Zhenhuan et al. (2017) Thoracic gamma irradiation-induced obesity in C57BL/6 female mice. Int J Radiat Biol 93:1334-1342 |
| Yang, Shanmin; Zhang, Mei; Chen, Chun et al. (2015) Triptolide Mitigates Radiation-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis. Radiat Res 184:509-17 |
| Groves, Angela M; Johnston, Carl J; Misra, Ravi S et al. (2015) Whole-Lung Irradiation Results in Pulmonary Macrophage Alterations that are Subpopulation and Strain Specific. Radiat Res 184:639-49 |
| Zhang, Steven B; Yang, Shanmin; Vidyasagar, Sadasivan et al. (2015) PicoGreen assay of circular DNA for radiation biodosimetry. Radiat Res 183:188-95 |
| Yin, Liangjie; Vijaygopal, Pooja; Menon, Rejeesh et al. (2014) An amino acid mixture mitigates radiation-induced gastrointestinal toxicity. Health Phys 106:734-44 |
| Johnston, Carl J; Manning, Casey M; Rangel-Moreno, Javier et al. (2013) Neonatal irradiation sensitizes mice to delayed pulmonary challenge. Radiat Res 179:475-84 |
| Xiao, Zhenyu; Yang, Shanmin; Su, Ying et al. (2013) Alteration of the inflammatory molecule network after irradiation of soft tissue. Adv Exp Med Biol 765:335-341 |
| Chen, Chun; Yang, Shanmin; Zhang, Mei et al. (2013) In vitro Sirius Red collagen assay measures the pattern shift from soluble to deposited collagen. Adv Exp Med Biol 765:47-53 |
| Cherry, Jonathan D; Williams, Jacqueline P; O'Banion, M Kerry et al. (2013) Thermal injury lowers the threshold for radiation-induced neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunction. Radiat Res 180:398-406 |
| Ma, Jun; Hou, Yanqian; Han, Deping et al. (2013) Fibroblast growth factor-peptide promotes bone marrow recovery after irradiation. Adv Exp Med Biol 765:155-161 |
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