Pulmonary changes induced by combined mouse β-interferon (rMuIFN-β) and irradiation in normal mice — toxic versus protective effects

New insights into the molecular pathology of radiation-induced pneumopathy

“…Due to a total inability to initiate V(D)J rearrangement, RAG-2 -/-mice fail to generate mature T-and B-lymphocytes [11]. For these investigations we used whole thorax irradiation with 15 Gy instead of hemithorax irradiation as this treatment modality has been described to readily induce lung fibrosis in C57BL/6 mice [14,15]. In contrast, in our hands hemithorax irradiation with 12.5 to 15 Gy was below the threshold for lung fibrosis.…”

Radiation-induced changes in breathing frequency and lung histology of C57BL/6J mice are time- and dose-dependent

“…It is known from earlier investigations that in contrast to C3H mice, C57BL/6 mice are sensitive to radiation-induced fibrosis [13,22,35]. In fact, C57BL/6 mice irradiated with 6, 12, and 20 Gy whole thorax irradiation all developed fibrosis in a dose-dependent manner 6 months post irradiation [13].…”

Radiosensitizing effect of natural and recombinant β-interferons in a human lung carcinoma in vitro

“…In contrast to IFN-a, IFN-b seems to increase the toxicity of radiation in normal cells to a lesser extent than in tumor cells (McDonald et al 1993b;Schmidberger et al 1997).…”