Dose-effect relationship of immunological adaptive response induced by low level X-rays in mice

The authors previous experiments have demonstrated that pre-irradiation with low level whole body X-rays could decrease the depression of immune functions by a challenge dose later to mice, which is called immunological adaptive response. In the present study, the dose-effect relationship of adaptive response in Kunmin strain mice was investigated. The results showed that pre-irradiation doses (D1) of 25, 50, 75 and 100 mGy with the dose rate of 12.5 mGy/min could induce adaptive response of the spontaneous incorporation of 3H-TdR into thymocytes and the reaction of splenocytes to Con A or LPS when the challenge doses (D2) were 1.0 or 1.5 Gy with the dose rate of 0.55 Gy/min