Investigation of the radioprotective efficacy of hesperidin against gamma-radiation induced cellular damage in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes

The present study was aimed to evaluate the radioprotective efficacy of hesperidin (HN), a flavonone glycoside against γ-radiation-induced cellular damage in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes. Different concentrations of HN (3.27, 6.55, 9.83, 13.10, 16.38 and 19.65 μM) were pre-incubated with lymphocytes for 30 min prior to γ-irradiation [4Gy] and the micronuclei (MN) scoring, dicentric aberration and comet assay were performed to fix the effective dose of HN against γ-irradiation induced cellular damage. The results indicated that among all the concentrations, 16.38 μM concentration of HN showed optimum protection by effectively decreasing the MN frequencies, dicentric aberrations and comet attributes. Based on the above results, 16.38 μM concentration of HN was fixed as the effective dose to further investigate its radioprotective efficacy which was then carried out by pre-incubating lymphocytes with 16.38 μM concentration of HN, exposing the lymphocytes to different doses (1, 2, 3 and 4Gy) of radiation and investigating radiation induced genetic damage (MN, dicentric aberration, comet assay, DNA fragmentation assay) and biochemical changes (changes in the level of enzymic and non-enzymic antioxidants, lipid peroxidation). The results indicated a dose dependent increase in both genetic damage and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), accompanied by a significant decrease in the antioxidant status compared to HN treated groups which modulated the toxic effects through its antioxidant potential. Thus the current study shows HN to be an effective radioprotector against γ-radiation induced in-vitro cellular damage in lymphocytes.