Early and long-term effects of chronic low-dose radiation and coenzyme Q diet on the proliferation of rat spleen T cells.

Chronic whole-body irradiation (0.43 cGy/day; total doses 11, 23, and 35 cGy) caused non-monotonous long-term disturbances in rat splenic T lymphocytes proliferation. Immunosuppression observed after chronic exposure had no correlation with the splenic cell number and the decrease in the fluorescence intensity of Hoechst 33258-DNA complex in T lymphocytes. Small, but significant radioprotection was observed with Coenzyme Q diet immediately after irradiation. These results indicate that the changes in T cell immunity, T cell viability, and T cell DNA state after exposure to low dose radiation are not interrelated.