Ionizing radiation-induced bystander mutagenesis and adaptation: Quantitative and temporal aspects

This work explores several quantitative aspects of radiation-induced bystander mutagenesis in WTK1 human lymphoblast cells. Gamma-irradiation of cells was used to generate conditioned medium containing bystander signals, and that medium was transferred onto naïve recipient cells. Kinetic studies revealed that it required up to 1 h to generate sufficient signal to induce the maximal level of mutations at the thymidine kinase locus in the bystander cells receiving the conditioned medium. Furthermore, it required at least 1 h of exposure to the signal in the bystander cells to induce mutations. Bystander signal was fairly stable in the medium, requiring 12–24 h to diminish. Medium that contained bystander signal was rendered ineffective by a 4-fold dilution; in contrast a greater than 20-fold decrease in the cell number irradiated to generate a bystander signal was needed to eliminate bystander-induced mutagenesis. This suggested some sort of feedback inhibition by bystander signal that prevented the signaling cells from releasing more signal. Finally, an ionizing radiation-induced adaptive response was shown to be effective in reducing bystander mutagenesis; in addition, low levels of exposure to bystander signal in the transferred medium induced adaptation that was effective in reducing mutations induced by subsequent γ-ray exposures.