BACKGROUND There is a crucial shortage of methods capable of determining the extent of accidental exposures of human beings to ionizing radiation. However, knowledge of individual exposures is essential for early triage during radiological incidents to provide optimum possible life-sparing medical procedures to each person. METHODS AND FINDINGS We evaluated immunocytofluorescence-based quanti...

This study investigated the efficiency of Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) and Homologous Recombination (HR) repair systems in rejoining DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) induced in CCD-34Lu cells by different γ-ray doses. The kinetics of DNA repair was assessed by analyzing the fluorescence decrease of γ-H2AX foci measured by SOID (Sum Of Integrated Density) parameter and counting foci number in...

Poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase-1 (PARP1) is a nuclear protein implicated in DNA repair, recombination, replication, and chromatin remodeling. The aim of this study was to evaluate possible differences between PARP1(-/-) and wild-type mice regarding induction and repair of DNA lesions in irradiated male germ cells. Comet assay was applied to detect DNA damage in testicular cells immediately, and two...

To investigate the accumulation and phytotoxicity of technical hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) in maize, young seedlings were exposed to solutions of technical HBCD at different concentrations. The uptake kinetics showed that the HBCD concentration reached an apparent equilibrium within 96hr, and the accumulation was much higher in roots than in shoots. HBCD accumulation in maize had a positive l...

BACKGROUND We have recently shown that women with endometriosis express an increased amount of telomerase and nucleolin, with concomitant loss of γ-H2AX in eutopic endometrium. To further examine these selected factors that regulate cell fate, in the pathogenesis of endometriosis, we studied the expression of telomerase, nucleolin, proliferating cell nuclear antigen and γ-H2AX in ectopic endome...

Most human exposures to ionising radiation are partial body exposures. However, to date only limited tools are available for rapid and accurate estimation of the dose distribution and the extent of the body spared from the exposure. These parameters are of great importance for emergency triage and clinical management of exposed individuals. Here, measurements of γ-H2AX immunofluorescence by mic...

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and the prognostic evaluation of cancer patients is of great importance in medical care. The use of artificial neural networks in prediction problems is well established in human medical literature. The aim of the current study was to assess the prognostic value of a series of clinical and molecular variables with the addition of γ -H2AX-a new DNA da...

Oxidative stress, caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS), is a major contributor to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-associated neoplasia. We mimicked ROS exposure of the epithelium in IBD using non-tumour human colonic epithelial cells (HCEC) and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 ). A population of HCEC survived H2 O2 -induced oxidative stress via JNK-dependent cell cycle arrests. Caspases, p21(WAF1) ...

Several genes involved in the DNA damage response and in maintaining genomic stability have emerged as breast cancer susceptibility genes. These include BRCA1 and BRCA2, as well as other genes with smaller contributions to breast cancer aetiology, such as TP53, CHEK2, and ATM. Germline mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 increase sensitivity to DNA damage and decrease cellular capacity to repair doubl...