RESEARCH ARTICLE
Effects of α-Particle Radiation on MicroRNA Responses in Human Cell-Lines
Vinita Chauhan*, Matthew Howland, Ruth Wilkins
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012First Page: 16
Last Page: 22
Publisher ID: TOBIOCJ-6-16
DOI: 10.2174/1874091X01206010016
Article History:
Received Date: 10/10/2011Revision Received Date: 21/1/2012
Acceptance Date: 14/2/2012
Electronic publication date: 19/3/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
A variety of alpha (α)-particle emitters are found ubiquitously in the environment, in commercial/therapeutic prod-ucts and are a potential threat in the form of a radiological dispersal device. Our understanding of the biological mechanisms and long-term health effects resulting from α-particle exposure is limited. Exposure to radiation induces modulations of gene networks, possibly through microRNAs (miRNAs), which could be targets for studying biological effects. In this study, changes in miRNA expression patterns after 0.5 Gy, 1.0 Gy and 1.5 Gy of α-particle radiation at a low dose-rate of exposure in three human cell-lines (A549, THP-1 and HFL) were investigated. The screening of 1,145 miRNAs across three human cell-lines resulted in unique, cell-specific responses with no overlap in miRNA expression observed in the three cell-lines. Prediction analysis suggests these α-particle induced miRNA mapped to target genes related to ribosomal assembly, lung carcinoma development, cell communication and keratin sulfate biosynthesis. Taken together, these results suggest that exposure to α-particle radiation results in cell-type specific responses in gene network regulatory processes.
