| First Author | Thacker J | Year | 1984 |
| Journal | Mouse News Lett | Volume | 70 |
| Pages | 80 | Mgi Jnum | J:13960 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:62138 | Citation | Thacker J, et al. (1984) Radiation sensitivity of cells cultured from 'wasted` mice. Mouse News Lett 70:80 |
| abstractText | Full text of MNL contribution: 6. Radiation sensitivity of cells cultured from 'wasted' mice. Recently Shultz et al. (1982 Nature 297, 402) reported that the wasted (wst/wst) mutant shows pathological changes with similarities to the human disorder ataxia telangiectasia (AT). AT cells are abnormally sensitive to ionising radiation (Taylor et al. 1975 Nature 258: 427) and preliminary data of Shultz et al. also suggested that wst/wst bone marrow cells are more sensitive to gamma-rays than wild-type littermates. The difference in radiosensitivity between AT and 'normal' human cells of about 3-fold can be demonstrated reliably by colony survival assays on cultured skin fibroblasts (Cox & Masson 1980 Int. J. Radiat. Biol. 38, 575) even when these cells are 'immortalized' by transformation with SV40 virus (Cox & Masson, pers. comm.). Given the importance of an animal model for AT, we have examined the radiosensitivity of cells cultured from wasted and wild-type mice. Cell cultures were initiated from various tissues of 24-30 day old mice using standard techniques; two wst/wst and one wild type (a sib of one of the wasted) mice were used. Wasted and wild type cell cultures did not differ appreciably in progression or senescence. About 2 months after initiation, the ability of single cells to form colonies had increased to about 20% for cultures from some tissues, and reliable radiation survival data could be obtained. The Figure shows an experiment with ear fibroblasts irradiated with 250 kV X-rays. Cells were spread on plastic dishes at various densities, depending on anticipated survival, with a standard number of 'feeder' cells (5 x 104/dish); colony formation was scored 20 days after irradiation. As can be seen, in this assay cells cultured from wasted mice are not more sensitive to radiation than wild type cells (exponential curves fitted to the data for the 3 cell strains were not distinguishable statistically and gave Do values in the range 116-118 rad). We are at present checking the sensitivity of further wild type strains to establish the radiation survival curve range for 'normal' mouse cells. However, over the dose range used, the data presented agree well with the published work of Diatloff-Zito et al. (1981 Int. J. Radiat. Biol. 39, 419) for non-transformed mouse lung fibroblasts. (Thacker and Masson) |
