Effects of ¹²C⁶⁺ Ion Beams Irradiation on Endothelial Dependent Relaxation in Isolated Rat Aortic Rings

Key words: 
• aortic tension /
• ¹²C⁶⁺ ion beam /
• endodermis function /
• superoxide anio

Abstract: Heavy ion beam has many characteristics，and it is expected to be the most suitable radiation therapy technique for malignant tumor. It is lack of depth-understanding on the potential adverse reactions caused by using this technique, because heavy ion radiotherapy is applied to clinical for a short time. Studies have shown that the vascular injury plays a pivotal role in normal tissue damage induced in the conventional radiation therapy, but there was no research report on heavy ion beam irradiation-induced vascular injury. In the present study, the isolated aortic rings of rats were irradiated by 12C6+ ion beam (300 MeV/u, 0.5 Gy/min) delivered by HIRFL(Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou), the effects of 12C6+ ion beam irradiation on aortic rings with endothelium dependent diastolic function have been investigated.NBT reduction method was used for assaying the vascular ring formation of superoxide anion (O2&#1048576;) level, and the involvement of superoxide anion in endothelial function injury in rats was investigated through the intervention test of exogenous superoxide dismutase (SOD) on O2. The results showed that, the vascular endothelial dependent vasodilation was impaired significantly (P < 0:01 vs control group) by irradiation with 2.0, 4.0 and 6.0 Gy 12C6+ ion beam in a dosedependent manner, and the NBT reduction of vascular rings increased dose-dependently (P <0.05 at 4.0 Gy, P <0.01 at 6.0 Gy vs control group). Adding exogenous SOD before irradiation could significantly inhibit the increasing of NBT reduction (P<0.01), and also had protective effect on vascular endothelium dependent diastolic function (P<0.01), but 10 min after irradiation with exogenous SOD, its protective function was significantly less than before. Conclusion indicated that 12C6+ ion beam irradiation could cause endothelial function impaired, O2&#1048576; scavenger SOD has a protective effect on endothelial dysfunction, suggesting that O2&#1048576; mediates endothelial injury induced by heavy ion irradiation.