Room: 301
Purpose: To highlight the importance of non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) repair in governing a cell’s radiosensitivity to helium and carbon ion beams of varying linear energy transfer (LET).
Methods: We selected a pair of isogenic human cancer cell lines with differing proficiency in non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) repair, the M059K (NHEJ-proficient) and M059J (NHEJ-deficient) glioblastoma cell lines, and as additional reference cell lines, we selected the H1299 non-small cell lung cancer and H460 large cell lung cancer cell lines. We exposed these cells to unmodulated helium and carbon ion beams with nominal energies of 150 MeV/u and 290 MeV/u, respectively, using energy degraders to achieve LETs ranging from 2.2 to 60 keV/μm. We performed clonogenic assays to calculate the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of each cell line in these conditions, relative to their survival in 6 MV x-rays, using the dose for 10% survival as the biological endpoint. To support the survival data, we performed immunohistochemical staining of DNA double strand break (DSB) markers (including γH2AX and 53BP1) 30 min and 24 h post irradiation to identify persistent radiation-induced foci.
Results: The RBE of the NHEJ-deficient M059J cell line showed significantly less LET dependence than the reference cell lines (increasing only to 1.37 ± 0.07 at 60 keV/μm for M059J versus 1.80 ± 0.10, 1.79 ± 0.04 and 1.98 ± 0.05 for M059K, H460 and H1299, respectively), despite M059J being more radiosensitive to all LETs. Preliminary analysis of foci data for proton-exposed cells indicate that the M059J cells have more persistent DSB repair foci 24 h post-irradiation (up to a factor of 2.4 ± 0.5 for γH2AX foci), consistent with their deficiency in DNA DSB repair.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that proficiency status in NHEJ is extremely important in determining how cell radiosensitivity varies with He- and C-ion LET.
Not Applicable / None Entered.
Not Applicable / None Entered.