Increasing the susceptibility of the rat 208F fibroblast cell line to radiation-induced apoptosis does not alter its clonogenic survival dose-response.

Recent studies have suggested a correlation between the rate and incidence of apoptosis and the radiation response of particular cell lines. However, we found that increasing the rate of induction of apoptosis in the fibroblast line 208F, by transfecting it with human c-myc, did not lead to a change in its clonogenic survival dose-response for either gamma-irradiation or 125I-induced DNA damage. It was also found that expression of mutant (T24) Ha-ras in the 208F line appeared to decrease the level of apoptosis per mitosis after irradiation and inhibited the formation of nucleosomal ladders, but did not affect either the onset of the morphological features of apoptosis or the clonogenic survival dose-response of the cells to either gamma-irradiation or 125I-induced DNA damage. Our findings suggest that it may be incorrect to make predictions about the radiosensitivity of cells based only on knowledge of their mode of death.