Heavy Ion Beams for Radiobiology: Dosimetry and Nanodosimetry at HIL

Abstract

Ionizing radiation induces a variety of DNA lesions, including single and double strand breaks. Large energy deposition precisely localized along the ion track that occurs in the case of heavy ion irradiation can lead to complex types of DNA double strand breaks in exposed biological material. The formation of nuclear double strand breaks triggers phosphorylation of histone H2AX, which can be microscopically visualized as foci in the γ-H2AX assay. Studies with a carbon ion beam are being carried out at the Heavy Ion Laboratory of the University of Warsaw. The γ-H2AX assay as a method of measuring the biological response of cells irradiated with 12 C ions as well as the frequency cluster size distributions obtained in the nanodosimetry experiment at HIL will be presented.

DNA damage assessment of human breast and lung carcinoma cells irradiated with protons and carbon ions

“…Such approach to complex foci analysis can provide more insights into DNA damage response and repair . This effect may influence the interpretation of the repair capacity of the cells irradiated with high LET particles, i.e., carbon ions as it can lead to an underestimation of DSB foci (Kaźmierczak et al, 2015). The aforementioned literature data which point to complexity of lesions induced by high LET particles should be taken into account when comparing this kind of results with numerical simulations.…”