The Effect of Ionizing Radiation on Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells.

Thursday, October 11, 2012 — Poster Session IV
2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.	Natcher Conference Center, Building 45	NLM	STEMCELL-4

Authors

• E.A. Remeeva
• I.V. Panyutin
• R.D. Neumann
• I.G. Panyutin

Abstract

Studying the effect of ionizing radiation (IR) on hESCs may provide valuable information on responses to IR exposure by human cells in their most naive state, and on consequences of IR exposure on the development of the human organism. We hypothesize that irradiation of hESC may affect the pathways of their spontaneous and induced differentiation, and change the patterns of gene expression within the resulting lineage-specific cell types. To test this hypothesis we irradiated cultured pluripotent hESC with low doses of 60Co gamma-radiation. Next, we studied differentiation of irradiated hESC induced by two different methods: Activin A treatment to definitive endoderm, and spontaneous embryoid bodies formation. We then analyzed the time course of the expression of pluripotency markers (Oct4 and Nanog), and early differentiation markers for definitive endoderm (FOXA2, Sox17), mesoderm (Brachyury), and neuroectoderm (PAX6) by quantitative RT PCR. Our results provide important insights into the sensitivity of hESC to IR; and could potentially result in the development of an assay for detection of the effects of very low doses of ionizing radiation on hESC.

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