Protecting effects specifically from low doses of ionizing radiation to mammalian cells challenge the concept of linearity

摘要

This report examines the origin of tissue effects that may follow from different cellular responses to low-dose irradiation, using published data. Two principal categories of cellular responses are considered. One response category relates to the probability of radiation-induced DNA damage. The other category consists of low-dose induced changes in intracellular signaling that induce mechanisms of DNA damage control different from those operating at high levels of exposure. Modeled in this way, tissue is treated as a complex adaptive system. The interaction of the various cellular responses results in a net tissue dose-effect relation that is likely to deviate from linearity in the low-dose region. This suggests that the LNT hypothesis should be reexamined. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that by use of microdosimetric concepts, the energy deposited in cell mass can be related to the occurrence of cellular responses, both damaging and defensive.