Carbon-ion-induced bystander cell-killing effect depends on time after irradiation

Yokota, Yuichiro; Funayama, Tomoo; Muto, Yasuko; Ikeda, Hiroko; Kobayashi, Yasuhiko

The purpose of this study is to clear a time dependency of carbon-ion-induced bystander cell-killing effect. Thus, we irradiated normal human fibroblasts with carbon ion microbeam (LET=103 keV/m), broad beam (108 keV/m) and -rays (0.2 keV/m). Survival rate of bystander cells was measured after 6-24 h co-culture with irradiated cells. The ratio of irradiated and bystander cells was <0.0005:1 in microbeam irradiation and 0.5:1 in broad beam and -ray irradiation, respectively. In microbeam-irradiated samples, the survival rate of bystander cells did not change at 6 h but decreased to about 85% of control at 24 h. In 0.13-Gy broad beam and 0.5-Gy -ray irradiated samples, the survival rate of bystander cells decreased to 80-90% of control at 6 h or later. From these results, it is found that bystander cell-killing effect is delayed when irradiated cells are extremely less than bystander cells.