FROM HEAD TO TOE: THE CELLULAR RESPONSE TO HEAVY ION EXPOSURE

Abstract

INTRODUCTION As a prerequisite for developing appropriate countermeasures to mitigate acute effects and late radiation risks for the astronaut and thereby enabling long-term human space flight, the cellular radiation response to densely ionizing radiation needs to be better understood. The biological effectiveness of accelerated heavy ions with high linear energy transfer (LET) for effecting DNA damage response pathways as a gateway to cell death or survival is of major concern for space missions. As body tissues differ in their radiation sensitivity, the radiation response of different cell types such as kidney cells, osteoblasts, fibroblasts, lens epithelial cells and of eyes lenses in culture was analyzed. One Sentence Summary: The strong activation of pro-inflammatory signaling in human cells after heavy ion exposure might be a suitable target for countermeasure development.