Long-term effects of acute low-dose ionizing radiation on the neonatal mouse heart: a proteomic study

Epidemiological studies establish that children and young adults are especially susceptible to radiation-induced cardiovascular disease (CVD). The biological mechanisms behind the elevated CVD risk following exposure at young age remain unknown. The present study aims to elucidate the long-term effects of ionizing radiation by studying the murine cardiac proteome after exposure to low and moderate radiation doses. NMRI mice received single doses of total body Co-60 gamma-irradiation on postnatal day 10 and were sacrificed 7 months later. Changes in cardiac protein expression were quantified using isotope-coded protein label and tandem mass spectrometry. We identified 32, 31, 66, and 34 significantly deregulated proteins after doses of 0.02, 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 Gy, respectively. The four doses shared 9 deregulated proteins. Bioinformatics analysis showed that most of the deregulated proteins belonged to a limited set of biological categories, including metabolic processes, inflammatory response, and cytoskeletal structure. The transcription factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha was predicted as a common upstream regulator of several deregulated proteins. This study indicates that both adaptive and maladaptive responses to the initial radiation damage persist well into adulthood. It will contribute to the understanding of the long-term consequences of radiation-induced injury and developmental alterations in the neonatal heart.