Medium from X-rayed cultures induces DNA strand-breaks in non-irradiated HeLa cells

There is growing evidence to indicate that several types of responses are induced by ionizing radiation in non-irradiated cells. Such bystander effects include the killing of non-irradiated cells, the induction of sister chromatid exchanges and chromosomal aberrations, and the induction of gene mutations and chromosomal instability and enhanced cell growth. In the present study, we assessed whether the medium from irradiated cultures can induce DNA strand-breaks in non-irradiated cells, using single-cell gel electrophoresis assay (comet assay). HeLa cells in culture were irradiated with 0.5 to 8 Gy of 140 kVp X-rays and one hour later, the medium was taken from the irradiated culture, passed through a filter and transferred to the parallel culture of non-irradiated HeLa cells as non-target cells. After incubation for 30 min, the comet assay was performed under alkaline and neutral conditions. Such treatments resulted in a dose-dependent increase in tail moment under either alkaline or neutral condition, indicating the induction of DNA single- or double-strand breaks, respectively. It was also shown that the clonogenic survival was reduced in the cells cultured in the medium from irradiated cultures. Such a change was not detected at all when medium alone was irradiated. These results provided disputed evidence that irradiated cells released certain genotoxic factor(s) into the culture medium that can induce DNA strand breaks leading to cell death. Our results suggest that physical contact between irradiated and non-irradiated cells may not be necessary for the bystander effects observed in this study. It appears that bystander responses may be mediated by multiple mechanisms