Radiation Stress Changes the Size of Side Population of Human Epithelial Cells

Stem cell cultures are heterogeneous and include true stem cells and progenitor cells. True stem cells are identified by flow cytofluorometry as a cell subset characterized by low accumulation of fluorescent dye rhodamin-123 and forming a side population. Low-dose γ-irradiation (10-200 mGy) of human skin epithelial stem cells and epithelial H69 tumor cells to was followed by an increase in cell counts by day 7 after the exposure. In parallel, reduction of the side population to 4-30% from the control for epithelial stem cells on the next day after exposure and to 22-36% from the control for H69 cells in 3 days after exposure. The size of the side population remained reduced to 8-37% of that in the control cultures of epithelial stem cells and H69 cells for at least 7 days after exposure. The decrease of the side population fraction of cells was not caused by cell death, but could be due to radiation-induced activation of the signal pathways, regulating the velocity of autoregeneration of the pool of true stem cells and acceleration of their transition to the pool of rapidly proliferating progenitor cells, this leading to an increase in the total cell count in the studied cultures under the effect of low-dose γ-radiation.