The space radiation environment is a complex field comprised primarily of charged particles spanning energies over many orders of magnitude. The principal sources of these particles are galactic cosmic rays, the Sun and the trapped radiation belts around the earth. Superimposed on a steady influx of cosmic rays and a steady outward flux of low-energy solar wind are short-term ejections of higher energy particles from the Sun and an 11-year variation of solar luminosity that modulates cosmic ray intensity. Human health risks are estimated from models of the radiation environment for various mission scenarios, the shielding of associated vehicles and the human body itself. Transport models are used to propagate the ambient radiation fields through realistic shielding levels and materials to yield radiation field models inside spacecraft. Then, informed by radiobiological experiments and epidemiology studies, estimates are made for various outcome measures associated with impairments of biological processes,...

There are serious concerns about possible late radiation damage to ocular tissue from prolonged space radiation exposure, and occupational and medical procedures. This study aimed to investigate the effects of whole-body high-energy proton exposure at a single dose on apoptosis, oxidative stress, and blood-retina barrier (BRB) integrity in the retina and optic nerve head (ONH) region and to compare these radiation-induced effects with those produced by fractionated dose. Six-month-old C57BL/6 male mice were either sham irradiated or received whole-body high energy proton irradiation at an acute single dose of 0.5 Gy or 12 equal dose fractions for a total dose of 0.5 Gy over twenty-five days. At four months following irradiation, mice were euthanized and ocular tissues were collected for histochemical analysis. Significant increases in the number of apoptotic cells were documented in the mouse retinas and ONHs that received proton radiation with a single or fractionated dose (p < 0.05). Immunochemical analysis revealed enhanced immunoreactivity for oxidative biomarker, 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) in the retina and ONH following single or fractionated protons with more pronounced changes observed with a single dose of 0.5 Gy. BRB integrity was also evaluated with biomarkers of aquaporin-4 (AQP-4), a water channel protein, a tight junction (TJ) protein, Zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), and an adhesion molecule, the platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1). A significantly increased expression of AQP-4 was observed in the retina following a single dose exposure compared to controls. There was also a significant increase in the expression of PECAM-1 and a decrease in the expression of ZO-1 in the retina. These changes give a strong indication of disturbance to BRB integrity in the retina. Interestingly, there was very limited immunoreactivity of AQP-4 and ZO-1 seen in the ONH region, pointing to possible lack of BRB properties as previously reported. Our data demonstrated that exposure to proton radiation of 0.5 Gy induced oxidative stress-associated apoptosis in the retina and ONH, and changes in BRB integrity in the retina. Our study also revealed the differences in BRB biomarker distribution between these two regions. In response to radiation insults, the cellular response in the retina and ONH may be differentially regulated in acute or hyperfractionated dose schedules.

Overview: The five-university NSCOR project investigates the responses of the central nervous system to space-like charged particle exposure by evaluating: synaptic function, in vitro and in vivo neurogenesis, behavior and behaviorally induced gene expression, and oxidative stress of the mouse hippocampus and cultured neural precursor cells. To test the role of reactive oxygen species in mediating the effects of radiation exposure, we compare responses in a catalase overexpressing transgenic mouse strain to wild type. We also use computational models of the hippocampus in three dimensions, informed by experimental measurements, to provide insight into network behavior. Radiation exposure protocols include single, acute whole-body exposures to ¹H, ²⁸Si and ⁵⁶Fe ions and mixed field exposures using ¹H + ⁵⁶Fe ions (24 h later). The animal models are 10-week-old C57BL/6J and MCATtg males which are evaluated at 30 and 90 days postirradiation. In vitro models are cultured murine and human neural stem cells irradiated with ¹H, ¹⁶O, ²⁸Si and ⁵⁶Fe ions at multiple energies and are evaluated at times from days to weeks. Highlights: Neural stem cells organized into neurospheres were irradiated with several ions at doses as low as 0.75 cGy. Data show that significant oxidative stress occurs that alters survival, proliferation and differentiation. Overall trends indicate that changes in oxidative stress (persisting for weeks) correlate with particle linear energy transfer (LET). ⁵⁶Fe ions elicited the largest and most persistent changes in stress markers, including antioxidant enzyme expression levels. The hippocampus-dependent contextual fear conditioning (CFC) and novel object recognition (NOR) paradigms were used to assess cognition and showed cognitive deficits after irradiation with the NOR paradigm more sensitive than CFC. Analysis of neurogenesis indicates that overall neurogenesis is inhibited at doses ≥1 Gy, but newly born activated microglia are significantly elevated at ≥0.1 Gy. High LET radiation affects all lineages of neural precursor cells and elicits a U-shaped dose–response for cells exhibiting the astrocyte marker GFAP. In a mixed field irradiation regimen (0.1 Gy ¹H, then 0.5 Gy ⁵⁶Fe 24 h later), NOR was impaired with 0.1 Gy ¹H or 0.1 Gy ¹H + 0.5 Gy ⁵⁶Fe but not with 0.5 Gy ⁵⁶Fe alone. A negative correlation between newly born activated microglia and NOR or behaviorally activated Arc gene expression was observed for exposures using protons and iron ions, suggesting that neuroinflammation contributes to the cognitive injury. A set of monocyte chemoattractant chemokines was reduced after the mixed beam exposure but not after the individual exposures suggesting compensatory or adaptive responses are elicited by the proton exposure. Patch clamp recordings on principal neurons of the CA1 and DG hippocampus fields were conducted on mice irradiated with ¹H, ²⁸Si and ⁵⁶Fe iron ions. Input resistance and resting membrane potential were modified by irradiation in CA1 and protons were found to be the most effective ion species. These parameters suggest that more miniature excitatory post synaptic potentials must be elicited simultaneously to initiate action potentials and therefore the neurons are less responsive post irradiation. Si- and Fe-irradiated animals showed only minor alterations in mEPSCs and mIPSCs. Granule neurons of the DG field showed no differences after ²⁸Si irradiation, but with ⁵⁶Fe significant increases in AMPA receptor-mediated mEPSC frequency were observed without affecting amplitude. This focuses attention on presynaptic glutamate release mechanisms. Functional changes in the CA1 network triggered by whole-body irradiation with protons, iron and silicon radiation were assessed with microelectrode array field recordings. Deficits in input–output curves and long-term potentiation (LTP) are observed in proton irradiated mice. In the dentate gyrus field, radiation enhanced input–output curves and LTP which is opposite of the inhibition observed for the CA1 field. This suggests that in the DG the most sensitive targets may be GABA-ergic inhibitory neurons that regulate granular cell excitability. ²⁸Si ion effects appear to be associated with dendro-somatic coupling expected to affect signaling of the hippocampal neurons to other brain structures and vary between rostral and ventral hippocampal regions. Observations on MCATtg mice show attenuation of radiation-elicited responses, which implicates reactive oxygen species as mediators of the biological responses. Modeling activities using a high-fidelity three-dimensional model of the hippocampus have begun and allow simulation of network activities incorporating neuron structural and functional parameters measured experimentally to probe their individual and combined contributions to network behavior. Changes in firing statistics are observed after incorporating measured electrophysiological parameters into the model. Clinical trial registration number: not applicable.

Biological model: In this project, we investigated the control of radiation-induced genotoxic damage expression in somatic cells of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We measured genotoxic damage in the C. elegans intestine by irradiating young larvae with 20 intestinal cells. Fourteen of these cells undergo exactly one nuclear division without cytoplasmic division leading to 14 binucleate cells. This nuclear division is synchronized and occurs at the first larval molt. Irradiation induces chromosome aberrations including dicentrics which we can quantify as stable anaphase bridges in the binucleate cells of young adult intestines. The endpoint is dose- and LET-dependent and we have demonstrated that individual intestinal cells have unique radiosensitivities. Results: The project has two components, a genetic screen for genes that control cell sensitivity and a microbeam component to directly probe individual cells. The genetic screen has identified several genes in NHEJ repair and telomere metabolism that modulate overall bridge frequency. Knockout mutants of cku-70, cku-80 and lig-4 greatly sensitize animals for anaphase bridge induction. A statistical method was used to determine whether induction of bridges was strictly random and cell autonomous and we determined that expression of bridges in pairs of cells was, in fact, non-random which suggested that signaling between cells affected the pattern of bridge expression. This allowed us to conduct an RNAi and mutation screen for genes that control the signaling (block non-random distributions) and several candidates have been identified. To directly test the notion that signaling of genotoxic damage occurs, we conducted experiments with alpha particles collimated through slits in metal foils and showed that genotoxic damage could be expressed many cell diameters away from a partial body exposure site. Thus, an in vivo bystander effect was demonstrated. Dose targeting was then improved to small regional exposures and eventually to individual cell targeting using 2 MeV protons from the microbeam facility at Texas A&M University. We now employ a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing transgenic worm (rrIs1[elt-2::GFP]) to target GFP-positive gut cells via the gut-specific transcription factor elt-2. This allows alignment of the cell of interest over the microbeam aperture under appropriate fluorescence illumination. Microbeam irradiation experiments for many pairwise combinations of cell signal transmission and reception (observed as expression of anaphase bridges) have been conducted and several interesting patterns emerge. (i) The signaling pattern is cell-specific and does not simply reflect cell–cell distance or require direct contact between cell pairs. (ii) The signal range can be as far as from cell pair 2 to cell pair 8 (>100 µm). (iii) There appears to be a functional compartment boundary at the pharynx/intestine valve as even high-dose exposures to the posterior pharyngeal bulb fail to induce bridges in nearby intestinal cells. (iv) The frequency of signal transmission and reception corresponds broadly to the overall frequency of bridges observed during whole-body irradiations which suggests that direct irradiation and ‘out-of-field’ effects may be additive. These patterns have been analyzed in terms of a cellular logic circuit map for signal transmission and reception. A dose–response for a subset of microbeam-targeted cells was measured over the range of 5–20 Gy. Controlled cell pair targeting was used to test the potential additivity of signals and we found that effects were supra-additive. Finally, preliminary measurements were conducted on GFP-expressing transgenic strains that bore cku-70(tm1524) III and smk-1(mn156) V mutations which confer enhanced radiosensitivity. Cku-70 is a Ku-70 ortholog while smk-1 is orthologous to the mammalian and Dictyostelium discoideum SMEK (suppressor of MEK null) protein. In the cku-70(0/0) strain, the severity of the bridges in bystander cells was enhanced, suggesting that signal recipient cells employ NHEJ repair pathways in the expression of anaphase bridges. Clinical trial registration number: Not applicable.

CNS The central nervous system which consists of the brain, spinal cord, and retina. Dose The energy absorbed per unit mass in units of gray (Gy) where 1 Gy = 1 J/kg. Hippocampus A region of the brain...