Biologically based multistage modeling of radiation effects

Abstract

This past year we have made substantial progress in modeling the contribution of homeostatic regulation to low-dose radiation effects and carcinogenesis. We have worked to refine and apply our multistage carcinogenesis models to explicitly incorporate cell cycle states, simple and complex damage, checkpoint delay, slow and fast repair, differentiation, and apoptosis to study the effects of low-dose ionizing radiation in mouse intestinal crypts, as well as in other tissues. We have one paper accepted for publication in ''Advances in Space Research'', and another manuscript in preparation describing this work. I also wrote a chapter describing our combined cell-cycle and multistage carcinogenesis model that will be published in a book on stochastic carcinogenesis models edited by Wei-Yuan Tan. In addition, we organized and held a workshop on ''Biologically Based Modeling of Human Health Effects of Low dose Ionizing Radiation'', July 28-29, 2005 at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. We had over 20 participants, including Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff as keynote speaker, talks by most of the low-dose modelers in the DOE low-dose program, experimentalists including Les Redpath (and Mary Helen), Noelle Metting from DOE, and Tony Brooks. It appears that homeostatic regulation may be central to understanding low-dose radiation phenomena. The primary effects of ionizing radiation (IR) are cell killing, delayed cell cycling, and induction of mutations. However, homeostatic regulation causes cells that are killed or damaged by IR to eventually be replaced. Cells with an initiating mutation may have a replacement advantage, leading to clonal expansion of these initiated cells. Thus we have focused particularly on modeling effects that disturb homeostatic regulation as early steps in the carcinogenic process. There are two primary considerations that support our focus on homeostatic regulation. First, a number of epidemiologic studies using multistage carcinogenesis models that incorporate the ''initiation, promotion, and malignant conversion'' paradigm of carcinogenesis are indicating that promotion of initiated cells is the most important cellular mechanism driving the shape of the age specific hazard for many types of cancer. Second, we have realized that many of the genes that are modified in early stages of the carcinogenic process contribute to one or more of four general cellular pathways that confer a promotional advantage to cells when these pathways are disrupted.