Role of DNA damage repair capacity in radiation induced adaptive response

This work was to explore γ-ray induced radioadaptive response (RAR) in Chinese hamster ovary(CHO) cell lines of different DNA damage repair capacities. CHO-9 cells and the two repair-deficient strains, EM-C11(DNA single strand break repair deficient) and XR-C1(DNA double strand break repair deficient), were irradiated with a priming dose of 0.08 Gy or 0.016 Gy. After 4 or 7 hours, they were irradiated again with a challenging dose of 1 Gy. The micronucleus induction and plating efficiency of the cells were assayed. Under 0.08 Gy priming dose and 4-h interval, just the CHO-9 cells showed RAR, while with the 7-h interval the CHO-9 and EM-C11 showed RAR, but XR-C1 did not. When the cells were pretreated with a lower priming dose of 0.016 Gy in a 4-h time interval, all the three cell lines showed RAR to subsequent 1 Gy irradiation. It can be concluded that RAR is not only related to the priming dose and time interval, but also has close dependence on the ability of DNA damage repair. (authors)