Effects of prolonged irradiation by low dose-rate ionizing radiation on the production of growth factors in murine bone marrow cells

To evaluate effects of prolonged irradiation by low dose-rate ionizing radiation on the production of growth factors of cells, the dose dependency of the expression of cytokines, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), of mice is being measured at accumulated doses between 1 and 8 Gy, with the dose interval of 1 Gy. In the present work, specific-pathogen-free (SPF) C3H-HeN female mice were irradiated by 137Cs γ-rays with the doses of 5-8 Gy at the dose rate of 20 mGy (22 h-day)-1, and the expression of IL-6 and GM-CSF in bone marrow and spleen cells from the mice were measured semi-quantitatively by the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. (author)