The response of genes and pathways of immunological system induced by irradiation

Abstract

Current studies have shown that ionizing radiation (IR) could increase the efficiency of radiation therapy by the stimulation of the immune system. This occurs in low-dose radiation as well as doses within hypofractionated range usually used in radiotherapy. However, the elucidation of the mechanisms of immunogenic modulation reported at these doses remain an issue. In this study, we analyzed transcriptome data available in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database related to B cells isolated from whole blood of 95 donors and then irradiated with 10 Gy. The aim of this study is to investigate the regulation of genes and pathways of the immune system considering the B7-CD28/CTLA4 superfamily, CD40-CD40LG molecules, and cytokines expressed by B cells irradiated. The connection between genes and pathways is established by the Reactome database. Relative activity and diversity of pathways were calculated to determine the modulation of the immune system response to irradiation. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures and Bonferronis method were used to determine differentially expressed genes. It was observed that IR up-modulates the response of pathways and genes considered in this study, which indicates that 10 Gy can enhance antitumor immune responses.