Nitric oxide mediated bystander responses induced by microbeam targeted cells

Considerable evidence has recently been accumulated in support of the existence of a 'bystander effect', which cells having received no irradiation show biological consequences from their vicinal irradiated cells. The application of microbeams is providing new insights into the radiation-induced bystander effect. The present study found that when a fraction of radioresistant human glioblastoma cells were individually targeted with a precise number of helium ions generated from the Gray Cancer Institute Charged Particle Microbeam, micronucleus (MN) induction significantly exceeded the expected value that was calculated from the number of MN observed when all of the cells were targeted assuming no bystander effect occurring. Even when only a single cell within a population was hit by one helium ion, the MN induction in the population could be increased by 16%. These results provide direct evidence of radiation-induced bystander effect. Moreover, MN was effectively induced in the unirradiated primary human fibroblasts and glioblastoma cells either co-cultured with irradiated cells or treated with the medium harvested from irradiated cells, indicating a signal molecule was produced from the irradiated cells. However, when c-PTIO, a nitric oxide (NO)-specific scavenger, was present in the medium during and after irradiation until MN analysis, the production of MN in all of the above cases was reduced to low levels. Consequently, NO plays an important role in the radiation-induced bystander effect