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1 Trescowthick Research Laboratories
2 Statistical Centre, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, St Andrews Place, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
| Abstract |
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-rays. However, in mice irradiated 10 min after Hoechst 33342 administration, doses between 12 Gy and 20 Gy were required to ablate these cells. The kinetics of cell loss and the rather large dose modification factor suggests that Hoechst 33342 may be suppressing an apoptotic response in this subpopulation. Whatever the mechanism involved, Hoechst 33342 clearly provides substantial protection against early radiation-induced endothelial cell loss. Further studies are necessary to determine the extent to which this initial protection translates into an improved long-term survival of the "protected" cells and, especially, to see whether this endothelial cell protection can ameliorate the later consequences of central nervous system irradiation, namely necrosis and paralysis. | Introduction |
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Limited penetration through cell layers is a feature of DNA ligands, which together with the fluorescent properties of Hoechst 33342 has been exploited in the use of the ligand as a perfusion marker, both in vitro [10] and in vivo [11, 12]. A good example is provided by a study of rat aorta [13] where, after intravenous injection of Hoechst 33342, uptake was first evident in endothelial cells and then, at increasing times after injection, there was progressive penetration to deeper cell layers. This feature of DNA ligands suggests that by changing the timing of irradiation relative to Hoechst 33342 administration, different cell populations within a tissue could be preferentially protected. For example, this approach could help resolve the question (see [1416]) of the relative importance of glial and endothelial cell damage in the development of late radionecrosis in the central nervous system (CNS), since systemic administration of a DNA-binding radioprotector such as Hoechst 33342 shortly before irradiation should protect preferentially the endothelium.
If radiation damage to the endothelial cell population underlies the late expression of CNS damage, then radiation-induced changes in endothelial cell numbers might provide a useful and early indication of the likely severity of late reactions. An assay developed by one of us for monitoring radiation-induced changes in endothelial cellularity in rat brain has provided some support for this view [17]. The method was based on the in situ accumulation of dopamine in brain endothelial cells that takes place after treatment of animals with L-DOPA and a monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Dopamine can be converted to a fluorophore by paraformaldehyde exposure, enabling endothelial cell numbers to be quantitated by fluorescence microscopy. In applying this technique in a study of blood vessel length and endothelial cellularity in irradiated rat brain, it was found that although there was no significant change in blood vessel length, there were complex changes in endothelial cell numbers [17]. Thus, after a single dose of 25 Gy 200 kV X-rays, within 1 day endothelial cell numbers were reduced to about 85% of control values. There was a subsequent continuing slow cell loss until endothelial cellularity reached a nadir at about 60% of control density by 6 months post irradiation. A transient repopulation was then seen before a second wave of cell loss at around 15 months after exposure. This second collapse in endothelial cellularity took place at a similar time to the development of brain necrosis and is consistent with the hypothesis that endothelial damage plays a part in late tissue damage.
The initial rapid fall to about 85% of control numbers within 1 day was examined further and found to be dose independent over an exposure range of 5100 Gy X-rays [17]. This suggested that there is an endothelial subpopulation comprising cells liable to rapid loss (presumably through apoptosis) after relatively low radiation doses. Since the response of these cells might provide a useful early marker to assess the effects of radioprotective agents, it was decided to undertake the present study of the effects of Hoechst 33342 on early post-irradiation endothelial cell loss before investigating the effects on late CNS end-points such as necrosis or paralysis.
| Materials and methods |
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The same technique developed for the earlier study [17] was used to measure endothelial cell density. Two intraperitoneal injections were given to induce a build up of catecholamines (dopamine) in brain endothelial cells. First, iproniazide (1-isonicotinoyl-2-isopropylhydrazide at 100 mg kg-1) was given 6 h before sacrifice to inhibit endothelial monoamineoxidase activity and, subsequently, the dopamine precursor L-DOPA (3,4-dihydro-1-ß-phenylalanine at 100 mg kg-1) was given 15 min before decapitation. The brain was then rapidly removed and pieces of tissue between the olfactory bulb and optic chiasma were dissected and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen. The interval between decapitation and immersion of the tissue samples into liquid nitrogen was 12 min. Frozen samples were maintained at sub-zero temperatures during lyophilization for 3 days and then exposed to formaldehyde vapour at 70% humidity and 80 °C to convert the accumulated catecholamines to fluorescent isoquinolines. Brain pieces were directly embedded in paraffin under vacuum, sectioned at 10 µm and mounted on dry slides in immersion oil. Scoring was carried out by fluorescence microscopy using a bandpass filter that obviated the need to use a monochromatic laser source by detecting isoquinoline fluorescence and excluding fluorescence of Hoechst 33342. Three sections were assessed for each animal; in each section of cortex (grey matter), endothelial cell numbers were counted over an area covering all cortical layers and comprising 30 graticule fields, each field corresponding to 0.0625 mm2. Data from at least three mice were used for each treatment group. The mean cell count for each mouse was calculated for each treatment group and an overall mean for each dose/group was obtained from the mean counts for each mouse in the group.
All the regression analyses described in the results section were performed using the SPSS statistical package (SPSS Advanced Statistics 7.5, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Analysis of the results of the DMSO experiments used the StatXact package, StatXact 3 for Windows (CYTEL Software Corporation, MA).
| Results, statistical analysis and discussion |
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and ß are parameters to be estimated. E represents the cell count in unirradiated control animals and Er is the asymptotic minimum of the cell count as the dose tends to infinity and only cells in a non-affected subpopulation remain. The dose that leads to a 50% reduction in the radiosensitive population of cells (ED50) is represented by
in the model. The parameter ß reflects the steepness of the doseeffect curve. The parameters were estimated from a non-linear regression on the overall means after weighting by the numbers of mice. All regressions and parameter values were derived with E and Er constrained to common values for the control and protected groups.
To determine the significance of the differences in cell counts between the protected and control groups, a regression was first fitted to all the data (both from control and protected groups). Second, the data were fitted so that independent values of
and ß were estimated for the control and protected data. The following test statistic was then used:
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1 and
2 are the residual sum of squares and degrees of freedom associated with first and second fits, respectively. This statistic was compared with the F distribution with
1-
2 and
2 degrees of freedom. A highly significant result was obtained (p<0.00001) for the difference between the control and protected groups. The independent fits for
and ß are given in Table 1
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The use of DMSO in saline as the carrier for the Hoechst 33342 should be mentioned, since DMSO itself possesses radioprotective properties. For the present study, DMSO was not an essential part of the experimental design but was included since this study is part of a programme involving comparison of radioprotective properties in a range of newly synthesized bisbenzimides. Some of these compounds are less water soluble than Hoechst 33342 and inclusion of 10% DMSO in the delivery vehicle is helpful. However, we had indirect evidence that intravenous delivery of this volume of DMSO in saline was unlikely to have a significant radioprotective effect from experiments investigating radioprotection of mouse lung by a new bisbenzimide, as in this tissue the putative cellular targets include endothelial cells. The radiation doseresponse for loss of lung function for mice pre-treated with intravenous vehicle alone (10% DMSO in saline) was indistinguishable from that for intact controls (paper in preparation). Moreover, the question of the protective effects of DMSO was investigated directly in a separate experiment that compared the effect of a 9 Gy irradiation on cellularity at 24 h in four intact mice and in three mice injected with DMSO/saline vehicle. To compare cell counts in these two groups, a permutation test was carried out owing to the small number of mice available for analysis. There was no statistically significant difference in the cell counts for the two groups (p=0.46). The mean (±standard error) endothelial cell densities for the irradiation only controls and for the irradiatedDMSO groups were 342.3±2.4 cells mm-2 and 345.9±4.5 cells mm-2, respectively.
Classical radioprotectors, which act by scavenging hydroxyl radicals, generally confer radioprotection characterized by DMF values of 2 to 3. This limit reflects the relative contributions of indirect (radical-mediated) and direct action. Recent pulse radiolysis studies support the hypothesis that Hoechst 33342 acts by chemical repair of radiation-induced radical species on DNA [18] and, since some of those species are common to both direct and indirect action [19], this could provide a basis for the relatively high radioprotection observed here. However, the DMFs reported for Hoechst 33342 in experiments with cultured cells are not particularly high; they are generally less than 2.
In seeking other possible explanations for the large DMF found with Hoechst 33342 in the present experiments, the mode of cell death of the radiosensitive subpopulation needs to be considered. Endothelial cells have very low proliferation rates, corresponding to population replacement times of the order of months [20], so the expected normal daily replacement rate is less than 1% [21]. Thus, the loss of a subpopulation of some 15% of these cells within a day must involve interphase death, presumably by apoptosis, although we have yet to confirm this directly. There are reports of apoptosis in cerebral endothelial cells [22]. Since DNA damage recognition is likely to be an early event in radiation-induced apoptosis, repair of initial DNA damage by Hoechst 33342 would be expected to also confer protection against both apoptosis and interphase death. However, it is possible that the DNA lesions recognized in the apoptotic response are chemically different from those responsible for reproductive cell death, with different susceptibility to chemical repair.
There are a number of other factors that could increase the DMF beyond the change due to direct repair by the ligand. The DMF would also be affected were Hoechst 33342 to interfere at other points downstream in the signal transduction pathway(s) for apoptosis. This latter scenario raises the possibilities that the availability of the ligand shortly after irradiation could provide some protection, or that the time course of the apoptotic response could be delayed. Such a delay would increase the opportunity for repair since there is competition between apoptotic and repair pathways. Indeed, delaying the apoptotic response has been shown to produce real increases in cell survival after irradiation [23]. While it might be possible that the vasoconstrictive effects of Hoechst 33342 at high dose could cause transient hypoxia, this seems unlikely as radioprotection has been reported at Hoechst 33342 doses too low to cause vasoconstriction [7]. Moreover, in a privileged site such as the brain, serious hypoxia is improbable.
Whatever the explanation for the high DMF observed, it must be emphasized that it has been shown to apply only to the smaller subpopulation of endothelial cells comprised of cells characterized only by their sensitivity to an early apoptotic death and with an as yet undefined role. The high DMF may well not fully extend to all endothelial cells or to late necrosis. Nevertheless, it cannot be assumed that endothelial cells in the unaffected subpopulation are free of radiation injury and, in so far as protection by Hoechst 33342 results from its effects on DNA damage, at least some protection should extend to these endothelial cells, although quantification as to how much is beyond the scope of the present investigation. An investigation of the effectiveness of Hoechst 33342 in protecting against late necrosis is clearly warranted.
It is interesting to compare the results of this and an earlier study [17], both of which infer a role for radiation-induced apoptosis in late CNS necrosis, with a recent report by Li et al [24] involving direct observation of apoptosis in adult rat spinal cord. While the present study focused on endothelial cells, Li et al [24] found apoptosis in glial cells but not in vascular endothelial cells. At 8 h post irradiation, a little less than 15% of glial cells were apoptotic. This result is clearly significant, but with the low incidence of apoptosis the importance of the timing of observations is critical and there is a possibility that apoptosis in the endothelial cells could have been missed. As noted previously, recent in vitro studies of endothelial cells of various origins have reported apoptosis [22]. The present experimental approach, which measures loss of cells, differs from that of Li et al [24] in being a cumulative endpoint rather than a snapshot. More generally, two conclusions can be drawn from the comparison of our results with those of Li et al [24]. One is that it would not be prudent to cite the results of Li et al [24] as evidence that endothelial cells are not targets for radiation effects on the CNS. Second, the comparison raises the question of possible radiobiological differences between brain and spinal cord, which could be addressed by seeking direct evidence of apoptosis in brain.
When originally considering the radioprotection of endothelial cells by Hoechst 33342, a potential problem was thought to be the P-glycoprotein pump activity known to be prevalent in these cells [25]. Indeed, in primitive haemopoietic cells exposed to Hoechst 33342, P-glycoprotein pump activity provides a means of enriching stem cell populations by fluorescence-activated cell sorting, as the stem cells are characterized by very low fluorescence [26]. However, our results clearly demonstrate that P-glycoprotein pump activity does not prevent sufficient Hoechst 33342 being taken up into endothelial cells to modify radiation responses (Figure 1
). This effective uptake into the endothelial cell population, in combination with the possibility of exploiting the perfusion kinetics of DNA ligands such as Hoechst 33342, could facilitate investigations into the role of endothelial cells in normal tissue responses to radiation.
In summary, this study confirms, first, that Hoechst 33342 can act as a radioprotector in vivo. Second, protection of a radiosensitive subpopulation of brain endothelial cells, probably killed by apoptosis, suggests that Hoechst 33342 can substantially modify the apoptotic response. In so far as there could be a role for radiation-induced apoptosis of endothelial cells in the development of late CNS damage, we conclude that follow-up investigations of the effects of Hoechst 33342 on apoptosis and also on late radionecrosis and paralysis would be particularly worthwhile. Finally, this study indicates that the pharmacokinetic properties of DNA-binding radioprotectors may prove helpful in elucidating the roles of endothelial and parenchymal damage in normal tissue responses to ionizing radiation.
| Footnotes |
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Current address for Dr N V Lyubimova: Institute of Pathology, University of Bern, Murtenstrasse 31, Bern 3010, Switzerland ![]()
Received for publication January 4, 1999. Revision received July 14, 2000. Accepted for publication September 25, 2000.
| References |
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-radiation. Radiat Res 1989;120:15463.[Medline]
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