Applicability of Gene Expression in Saliva as an Alternative to Blood for Biodosimetry and Prediction of Radiation-induced Health Effects

Radiat Res. 2024 Mar 19. doi: 10.1667/RADE-23-00176.1. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTAs the great majority of gene expression (GE) biodosimetry studies have been performed using blood as the preferred source of tissue, searching for simple and less-invasive sampling methods is important when considering biodosimetry approaches. Knowing that whole saliva contains an ultrafiltrate of blood and white blood cells, it is expected that the findings in blood can also be found in saliva. This human in vivo study aims to examine radiation-induced GE changes in saliva for biodosimetry purposes and to predict radiation-induced disease, which is yet poorly characterized. Furthermore, we examined whether transcriptional biomarkers in blood can also be found equivalently in saliva. Saliva and blood samples were collected in parallel from radiotherapy (RT) treated patients who suffered from head and neck cancer (n = 8) undergoing fractioned partial-body irradiations (1.8 Gy/fraction and 50-70 Gy total dose). Samples were taken 12-24 h before first irradiation and ideally 24 and 48 h, as well as 5 weeks after radiotherapy onset. Due to the low quality and quantity of isolated RNA samples from one patient, they had to be excluded from further analysis, leaving a total of 24 saliva and 24 blood samples from 7 patients eligible for analysis. Using qRT-PCR, 18S rRNA and 16S rRNA (the ratio being a surrogate for the relative human RNA/bacterial burden), four housekeeping genes and nine mRNAs prev...
Source: Radiation Research - Category: Physics Authors: Source Type: research