A proteomic analysis of murine bone marrow and its response to ionizing radiation

To characterize the mouse bone marrow tissue proteome and investigate the response to radiation damage we took bone marrow before and after 4-Gy gamma-irradiation from mouse strains (C57BL/6 and CBA/Ca) that differ in their short-term and long-term radiation responses and analyzed extracellular proteins by high-resolution 2-DE. Twenty proteins were identified from 71 protein spots in both C57BL/6 and CBA/Ca. We detected significant differences between control and irradiated bone marrow and between genotypes and identified many of the changed proteins by MS. In C57BL/6, 27 spots were significantly different between control and irradiated samples. In CBA/Ca, 18 spots showed significant changes following irradiation. Proteins such as serum albumin, apolipoprotein A-I, ferritin, haptoglobin (Hp) and alpha-1-antitrypsin were changed in irradiated bone marrow of both mouse strains, reflecting an ongoing acute-phase reaction. Several other proteins including serotransferrin, neutrophil collagenase, peroxiredoxin 2 and creatine kinase M chain were changed specifically in an individual mouse strain. The proteomic approach makes an important contribution to characterizing bone marrow proteome and investigating the tissue response of bone marrow to radiation, assists in identifying genotype-dependent responses and provides support for the importance of microenvironmental factors contributing to the overall response.