An infrared microspectroscopy 2DCOS study of the effect of radiation on normal and cancer cells

Radiotherapy is widely used in cancer treatment, and there is a growing interest in knowing the effect of irradiation at cellular and molecular level. Infrared microspectroscopy combined with software techniques such as two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy (2DCOS) has the potential to offer an answer to the study of metabolic changes produced in cells subjected to irradiation. Keratinocyte cells from normal (HOK) or cancer (SCC25) cell lines have been subjected to different doses and 2DCOS maps have been obtained. The results are analysed either by looking at variations at a given radiation dose or the effect of different radiation doses on single cell lines. It is observed that at 100 cGy radiation, normal cells are more affected than cancer cells whereas at 200 cGy the changes induced by irradiation in cancer cells are different. Increasing the intensity of the irradiation dose does not change the pattern of the synchronous map in normal cells, whereas in cancer cells high radiations doses produces maps compatible with no metabolic activity, a behaviour that has also been found in the TGase activity of the cells.