A Laser-plasma-produced soft X-ray laser at 89 eV generates DNA double-strand breaks in human cancer cells

Sato, Katsutoshi*; Nishikino, Masaharu; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Shimokawa, Takashi*; Imai, Takashi*; Teshima, Teruki*; Nishimura, Hiroaki*; Kando, Masaki

Journal of Radiation Research, 56(4), p.633 - 638, 2015/07

https://doi.org/10.1093/jrr/rrv015

While X-ray laser is expected to be widely applied to biomedical studies, this has not been achieved to date and its biological effects such as DNA damage have not been evaluated. As a first step for its biological application, we developed a culture cell irradiation system using laser-plasma soft X-ray laser and investigated whether the soft X-ray laser is able to induce the DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) in living cells or not. The human adenocarcimona cell line A549 was irradiated with the soft X-ray laser at a photon energy of 89 eV and then the repair focus formation of the DSBs was assessed by immunofluorescence staining with anti-phosphorylated DNA-PKcs antibody. As a result, the phosphorylated DNA-PKcs foci were clearly identified even with just a single shot of the soft X-ray laser. In this study, we successfully demonstrated for the first time that soft X-ray laser at 89 eV induced the DNA double strand breaks in living cells.