The Effects of Radiation on Marrow Cell Differentiation

Abstract

With improved patient survival, cancer treatment induced bone loss (CTIBL) has become and increasingly serious complication of therapy. This study will be looking at the effect of radiation on a marrow cell line's potential to differentiate into osteoblastic, adipocytic, or fibroblastic cells. Alterations in cell differentiation may play a role in CITBL. Marrow stromal cells harvested from p53 knock out transgenic mice were plated into culture flasks. Twelve hours after plating the flasks were irradiated at different clinically relevant radiation doses. The flasks were fixed and stained following two weeks, four weeks, and six weeks of culture and separated into three different analytical groups looking at: Mineralization, Adiposity, and Gene Expression between the different sets of radiation doses. We are investigating the effects of radiation, time dependent cellular differentiation, and reductions in mineralization and adiposity. Preliminary data suggests an inverse relationship between osteoblastic and adipogenic differentiation by marrow cells in vitro following increasing doses of gamma irradiation. This may aid in understanding some fundamental mechanisms of Cancer-Treatment Induced Bone Loss.