Abstract
The role of the pprI gene from Deinococcus radiodurans R1 in therapy of acute radiation injury of a mammalian host was investigated. We injected a plasmid containing the pprI gene into the muscle of mice exposed to total 6Gy of 60Co γ-ray radiation. After injection, we used in vivo gene electroporation technology to transfer the pprI gene into the cell. We found the PprI protein was expressed significantly at 1 d after irradiation, but there was no expression of pprI gene 7 d post-irradiation. The expression of pprI gene evidently decreased the death rate of mice exposed to lethal dose radiation, significantly relieved effects on blood cells in the acute stage, shortened the persistence time of the decrease of lymphocytes, and decreased the apoptotic rates of spleen cells, thymocytes and bone marrow cells. The expression of Rad51 protein in the lungs, livers, and kidneys was significantly higher in the mice treated with the pprI plasmid after irradiation. However, there were no obvious differences for Rad52 protein expression. We conclude that the prokaryotic pprI gene of D. radiodurans R1 first was expressed in mammalian cells. The expressed prokaryotic PprI protein has distinct effects of the prevention and treatment on acute radiation injury of mammal. The effects of radio-resistance may relate to expression of Rad51 protein which is homologous with RecA from D. radiodurans.
Highlights
Deinococcus radiodurans R1 is one of the most radiation resistant organisms on the earth [1]
We asked if transfer of the D. radiodurans pprI gene to mammals would express and confer anti-radiation protection
The pprI gene acts as a switch gene in D. radiodurans [22]
Summary
Deinococcus radiodurans R1 is one of the most radiation resistant organisms on the earth [1] It can tolerate many abiotic stresses including ionizing radiation, UV radiation, desiccation, mitomycin C, and hydrogen peroxide [2, 3]. The protein PprI ( called IrrE) is one of the repair proteins in D. radiodurans It is encoded by gene DR_0167, and plays an important role in stress resistance. The pprI gene can promote recA, pprA genes in cells to participate the DNA damage recovery gene expression, and the PprI protein can incentive recA and pprA to increase genetic transcription after radiation, it accelerates DNA damage repair which caused by ionizing radiation [17]. We asked if transfer of the D. radiodurans pprI gene to mammals would express and confer anti-radiation protection. We constructed an eukaryotic plasmid, pCMV-HA-pprI (patent number: 200910003512.2, 2009-07-29, China) and transferred the www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget plasmid to the muscle of mice by in vivo electroporation to study the preventive and therapeutic effect of pprI gene in mammalian cells after γ ray radiation
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