Abstract
Exposure to ionizing radiations (IRs) is ubiquitous in our environment and can be categorized into “targeted” effects and “non-targeted” effects. In addition to inducing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage, IR exposure leads to epigenetic alterations that do not alter DNA sequence. Using an appropriate model to study the biological effects of radiation is crucial to better understand IR responses as well as to develop new strategies to alleviate exposure to IR. Zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a scientific model organism that has yielded scientific advances in several fields and recent studies show the usefulness of this vertebrate model in radiation biology. This review briefly describes both “targeted” and “non-targeted” effects, describes the findings in radiation biology using zebrafish as a model and highlights the potential of zebrafish to assess the epigenetic effects of IR, including DNA methylation, histone modifications and miRNA expression. Other in vivo models are included to compare observations made with zebrafish, or to illustrate the feasibility of in vivo models when the use of zebrafish was unavailable. Finally, tools to study epigenetic modifications in zebrafish, including changes in genome-wide DNA methylation, histone modifications and miRNA expression, are also described in this review.
Highlights
All living organisms including humans are continuously exposed to ionizing radiations (IRs) that can be categorized into terrestrial, cosmic and man-made radiations
Radiation-induced bystander effects (RIBEs) refer to biological effects which occurred in unirradiated cells/organisms after they were put in contact with the irradiated cells/organisms or immersed in the medium having previously been conditioned by the irradiated cells/organisms [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]
Such genomic instabilities were deemed to associate with ionizing radiation (IR)-induced epigenetic alterations
Summary
All living organisms including humans are continuously exposed to ionizing radiations (IRs) that can be categorized into terrestrial, cosmic and man-made radiations. Since the 1990s, “non-targeted” effects of IRs, i.e., the propagation of effects from irradiated cells or organisms to non-irradiated or bystander cells or organisms, were revealed and characterized These included the bystander effect, adaptive response, rescue effect, genomic instability, changed profiles of gene expression and of non-coding RNAs. Radiation-induced bystander effects (RIBEs) refer to biological effects which occurred in unirradiated cells/organisms after they were put in contact with the irradiated cells/organisms or immersed in the medium having previously been conditioned by the irradiated cells/organisms [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. It was suggested that the bystander zebrafish embryos did not need NO-induced damages to initiate their release of the RIRE signals [76]
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