Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "C. Darwin", Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Centro Nazionale per le Tecnologie Innovative in Sanità Pubblica (TISP), Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), 00161 Rome, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 May 13;23(10):5472. doi: 10.3390/ijms23105472.
A large amount of evidence from radiobiology studies carried out in Deep Underground Laboratories support the view that environmental radiation may trigger biological mechanisms that enable both simple and complex organisms to cope with genotoxic stress. In line with this, here we show that the reduced radiation background of the LNGS underground laboratory renders neuroblasts more sensitive to ionizing radiation-induced (but not to spontaneous) DNA breaks compared to fruit flies kept at the external reference laboratory. Interestingly, we demonstrate that the ionizing radiation sensitivity of flies kept at the LNGS underground laboratory is rescued by increasing the underground gamma dose rate to levels comparable to the low-LET reference one. This finding provides the first direct evidence that the modulation of the DNA damage response in a complex multicellular organism is indeed dependent on the environmental dose rate.
大量来自深部地下实验室进行的放射生物学研究的证据支持这样一种观点，即环境辐射可能触发生物机制，使简单和复杂的生物体能够应对遗传毒性应激。与此一致，在这里我们表明，LNGS 地下实验室减少的辐射背景使神经母细胞瘤对电离辐射诱导的（而不是自发的）DNA 断裂更敏感，与保存在外部参考实验室的果蝇相比。有趣的是，我们证明，保存在 LNGS 地下实验室的果蝇的电离辐射敏感性可以通过将地下γ剂量率提高到与低 LET 参考剂量率相当的水平来挽救。这一发现提供了第一个直接证据，表明复杂多细胞生物体中的 DNA 损伤反应的调节确实取决于环境剂量率。
