Radioadaptive response induced by alpha-particle-induced stress communicated in vivo between zebrafish embryos

We report data demonstrating that zebrafish embryos irradiated by alpha particles can release a stress signal into the water, which can be communicated to the unirradiated zebrafish embryos sharing the same water medium and thereby inducing a radioadaptive response in these unirradiated zebrafish embryos. The effects of radiation on the whole embryos were studied through quantification of apoptotic signals at 24 h post fertilization through staining with the vital dye acridine orange, followed by counting the stained cells under a microscope. In these experiments, dechorionated embryos were irradiated and then partnered with two other groups of unirradiated embryos, namely the bystander group (no more further treatments) and adaptive group (subjected to a further challenging dose) of embryos. The adaptive group of embryos were then separately further irradiated with a challenging dose. The results show that the number of apoptotic signals for the adaptive group is smaller than that for the corresponding control group, while that for the bystander group is larger than that for the corresponding control group. These suggest that the stress communicated in vivo between the irradiated zebrafish embryos and those unirradiated embryos sharing the same medium will induce radioadaptive response in the unirradiated embryos.