Development of disease prevention method using radiation irradiated pathogenic microorganisms, cells and animals

Enhancement of the abilities of specific and non-specific disease prevention through the regulation of cytokine production has been paid attention in clinical and veterinary fields. Bovine monocytes isolated from the peripheral blood were exposed to X-ray at 0.1-10 Gy and cultured in the conditions with and without LPS stimulation to investigate the radiation effects at a low level on the expression of cytokine mRNA. The expressions of IL-1 and TNFα were significantly increased in the bovine peripheral monocytes by the exposure to X-ray. If it become possible to control the induction of IL-1 and TNFα by low level X-ray, the radiation would be used as a new biophylaxis method. Then, an investigation was made on the radiation effects on pathogenic plasmid such as capsule plasmid of Bacillus anthracis. A system able to detect a one-base change in base sequence was designed using capE gene, which has been known to mediate the positive regulation of capsule expression. Not only phenotypic changes but also little changes in the phenotype caused by gene mutation became detectable. Thus, it became possible by this detection method to make analysis of radiation induced gene mutation in a plasmid and its frequency. (M.N.)