Dose-dependent metabolic alterations in human cells exposed to gamma irradiation

Radiation exposure is a threat to public health because it causes many diseases, such as cancers and birth defects, due to genetic modification of cells. Compared with the past, a greater number of people are more frequently exposed to higher levels of radioactivity today, not least due to the increased use of diagnostic and therapeutic radiation-emitting devices. In this study, ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS)-based metabolic profiling was used to investigate radiation- induced metabolic changes in human fibroblasts. After exposure to 1 and 5 Gy of γ-radiation, the irradiated fibroblasts were harvested at 24, 48, and 72 h and subjected to global metabolite profiling analysis. Mass spectral peaks of cell extracts were analyzed by pattern recognition using principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The results showed that the cells irradiated with 1 Gy returned to control levels at 72 h post radiation, whereas cells irradiated with 5 Gy were quite unlike the controls; therefore, cells irradiated with 1 Gy had recovered, whereas those irradiated with 5 Gy had not. Lipid and amino acid levels increased after the higher-level radiation, indicating degradation of membranes and proteins. These results suggest that MS-based metabolite profiling of γ-radiation-exposed human cells provides insight into the global metabolic alterations in these cells.