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Updated: May 11, 2026
Quantitation of Endothelial Cell Adhesiveness In Vitro
Published on: June 18, 2015
Differential response to acute low dose radiation in primary and immortalized endothelial cells
Charlotte Rombouts1, An Aerts, Michael Beck
1Radiobiology Unit, Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN) , Mol , Belgium.
Purpose:
The low dose radiation response of primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and its immortalized derivative, the EA.hy926 cell line, was evaluated and compared.
Material And Methods:
DNA damage and repair, cell cycle progression, apoptosis and cellular morphology in HUVEC and EA.hy926 were evaluated after exposure to low (0.05-0.5 Gy) and high doses (2 and 5 Gy) of acute X-rays.
Results:
Subtle, but significant increases in DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) were observed in HUVEC and EA.hy926 30 min after low dose irradiation (0.05 Gy). Compared to high dose irradiation (2 Gy), relatively more DSB/Gy were formed after low dose irradiation. Also, we observed a dose-dependent increase in apoptotic cells, down to 0.5 Gy in HUVEC and 0.1 Gy in EA.hy926 cells. Furthermore, radiation induced significantly more apoptosis in EA.hy926 compared to HUVEC.
Conclusions:
We demonstrated for the first time that acute low doses of X-rays induce DNA damage and apoptosis in endothelial cells. Our results point to a non-linear dose-response relationship for DSB formation in endothelial cells. Furthermore, the observed difference in radiation-induced apoptosis points to a higher radiosensitivity of EA.hy926 compared to HUVEC, which should be taken into account when using these cells as models for studying the endothelium radiation response.
