Up-regulation of ROS by mitochondria-dependent bystander signaling contributes to genotoxicity of bystander effects

Genomic instability can be observed in bystander cells. However, the underlying mechanism(s) is still relatively unclear. In a previous study, we found that irradiated cells released mitochondria-dependent intracellular factor(s) which could lead to bystander γ-H2AX induction. In this paper, we used normal (ρ+) and mtDNA-depleted (ρ0) human-hamster hybrid cells to investigate mitochondrial effects on the genotoxicity in bystander effect through medium transfer experiments. Through the detection of DNA double-strand breaks with γ-H2AX, we found that the fraction of γ-H2AX positive cells changed with time when irradiation conditioned cell medium (ICCM) were harvested. ICCM harvested from irradiated ρ+ cells at 10 min post-irradiation (ρ+ ICCM10 min) caused larger increases of bystander γ-H2AX induction comparing to ρ0 ICCM10 min, which only caused a slight increase of bystander γ-H2AX induction. The ρ+ ICCM10 min could also result in the up-regulation of ROS production (increased by 35% at 10 min), while there was no significant increase in cells treated with ρ0 ICCM10 min. We treated cells with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), the scavenger of ROS, and quenched γ-H2AX induction by ρ+ ICCM. Furthermore, after the medium had been transferred and the cells were continuously cultured for 7 days, we found significantly increased CD59− gene loci mutation (increased by 45.9%) and delayed cell death in the progeny of ρ+ ICCM-treated bystander cells. In conclusion, the work presented here suggested that up-regulation of the mitochondria-dependent ROS might be very important in mediating genotoxicity of bystander effects.