Morphological changes in neutron irradiated red blood cells.

Living human red blood cells (erythrocytes) were irradiated with a beam of thermal neutrons having a thermal neutron flux of 9.4 X 10(9) neutrons/cm2 per sec corresponding to a dose rate of 5 Gray per hour. The neutron beam was obtained from the thermal neutron facility at the MIT Nuclear Reactor and contained some gamma-ray contamination which contributes approximately 8% of the dose effect. Approximately 92% of the dose effect is due to the neutron radiation. Populations of neutron irradiated red blood cells were examined under scanning electron microscopy to observe morphological changes due to the radiation dose. The thermal neutron doses ranged from zero for controls to 75 Gray, and cell populations were examined at various post-irradiation time periods of 10, 48, and 96 h. A four-stage discoid to spheroid shape transformation of the damaged red blood cells was characterized, and the time dependence of each transformation stage was determined for both unirradiated and irradiated cells. The radiation dose caused an initial dose-dependent shift from Stage 1 to Stage 2 with an associated increase in the transformation rate constants. The thermal neutron doses delivered are considered to be in the low dose range for radiation effects on red blood cells, yet the pronounced effects indicate a high relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for thermal neutrons.