The use of the mouse chimera assay to detect early embryonic damage from male mice exposed to low-dose radiation

Mouse chimeras are in vitro aggregations of two 4-cell embryos and are used to detect subtle, nonlethal changes, which are expressed as a proliferative disadvantage in exposed embryos. One of the embryos is labeled with a viable dye (FITC) in order to determine the relative cellular contribution of each embryo when the chimera is dissociated 40 hours later. This proliferative disadvantage has been seen at doses which do not produce an effect on cell number when the embryos are cultured singly. Previously, the assay has detected a decrease in cellular proliferation in embryos from male mice exposed to a single dose of x-radiation as low as 0.05 Gy. In the current study, male mice were irradiated with a single dose of 0, 0.001, 0.01, or 0.05 Gy, and then serially mated for the next 8 weeks to unexposed females. Chimeras were constructed from control and treated embryos. Embryos from males treated with 0.05 Gy exhibited a significant decrease in cellular proliferation during weeks 6 and 7 post-irradiation. A similar decrease was seen in the males treated with 0.01 Gy. No reductions were observed from embryos cultured singly in any of the treatment groups