Abstract
Cells respond to ionizing radiation through an intricate network of interacting signaling cascades that are engaged in the regulation of diverse cellular functions, such as cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, and apoptosis. While changes in protein modification, activity, and sub-cellular localization may directly mediate these responses, alterations in gene expression also represent a central component of the pathways involved. Studies of altered gene expression have historically played an important role in elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular radiation response. In recent years, functional genomics approaches, such as microarray profiling, have been developed that can simultaneously monitor changes in gene expression across essentially the entire genome. However, analogous methods for global measurements of protein expression or modification have lagged behind. As global transcription profiling has become increasingly accessible, the quantity of information on gene expression responses to irradiation has increased dramatically. While many such experiments have provided improved insight into various aspects of radiation response, the diversity of experimental models and details of radiation dose, timing, and data analysis that have been employed means that no single consistent picture has emerged yet. More sophisticated methods for data analysis, data mining, and reverse engineering to reconstruct the underlying response pathways are continually being developed, and can extract additional value from profiling studies. As methods for the global study of other biomolecules become more routine, it will be important to integrate the results of radiation response profiling across multiple biological levels, and to build from simpler experimental systems toward more complex multi-cellular and in vivo systems. The future development of “integromic” models of radiation response should add substantially to the understanding gained from gene expression studies alone.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Fornace AJ, Alamo IJ, Hollander M (1988) DNA damage-inducible transcripts in mammalian cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 85:8800–8804
Fornace AJ, Nebert D, Hollander M, Luethy J, Papathanasiou M, Fargnoli J, Holbrook N (1989) Mammalian genes coordinately regulated by growth arrest signals and DNA-damaging agents. Mol Cell Biol 9:4196–4203
Kastan M, Zhan Q, El-Deiry WS, Carrier F, Jacks T, Walsh W, Plunkett B, Vogelstein B, Fornace AJ (1992) A mammalian cell cycle checkpoint pathway utilizing p53 and GADD45 is defective in ataxia-telangiectasia. Cell 71:587–597
El-Deiry WS, Tokino T, Velculescu V, Levy D, Parsons R, Trent J, Lin D, Mercer WE, Kinzler K, Vogelstein B (1993) WAF1, a potential mediator of p53 tumor suppression. Cell 75:817–825
Sheikh MS, Carrier F, Papathanasiou M, Hollander M, Zhan Q, Yu K, Fornace AJ (1997) Identification of several human homologs of hamster DNA damage-inducible transcripts. Cloning and characterization of a novel UV-inducible cDNA that codes for a putative RNA-binding protein. J Biol Chem 272:26720–26726
Monks A, Scudiero D, Skehan P, Shoemaker R, Paull K, Vistica D, Hose C, Langley J, Cronise P, Vaigro-Wolff A, Gray-Goodrich M, Campbell H, Mayo J, Boyd M (1991) Feasibility of a high-flux anticancer drug screen using a diverse panel of cultured human tumor cell lines. J Natl Cancer Inst 83:757–766
Paull K, Shoemaker R, Hodes L, Monks A, Scudiero D, Rubinstein L, Plowman J, Boyd M (1989) Display and analysis of patterns of differential activity of drugs against human tumor cell lines: development of mean graph and COMPARE algorithm. J Natl Cancer Inst 81:1088–1092
Shoemaker R (2006) The NCI60 human tumour cell line anticancer drug screen. Nat Rev Cancer 6:813–823
Weinstein J (2006) Spotlight on molecular profiling: “Integromic” analysis of the NCI-60 cancer cell lines. Mol Cancer Ther 5:2601–2605
O’connor P, Jackman J, Bae I, Myers T, Fan S, Mutoh M, Scudiero D, Monks A, Sausville E, Weinstein J, Friend S, Fornace AJ Jr, Kohn K (1997) Characterization of the p53 tumor suppressor pathway in cell lines of the National Cancer Institute anticancer drug screen and correlations with the growth-inhibitory potency of 123 anticancer agents. Cancer Res 57:4285–4300
Amundson S, Myers T, Scudiero D, Kitada S, Reed J, Fornace AJ Jr (2000) An informatics approach identifying markers of chemosensitivity in human cancer cell lines. Cancer Res 60:6101–6110
Bae I, Smith M, Sheikh MS, Zhan Q, Scudiero D, Friend SH, O’connor P, Fornace AJ Jr (1996) An abnormality in the p53 pathway following g-irradiation in many wild-type p53 human melanoma lines. Cancer Res 56:840–847
Carrier F, Georgel PT, Pourquier P, Blake M, Kontny HU, Antinore M, Gariboldi M, Myers T, Weinstein J, Pommier Y, Fornace AJ (1999) Gadd45, a p53-responsive stress protein, modifies DNA accessibility on damaged chromatin. Mol Cell Biol 19:1673–1685
Liang P, Pardee A (1992) Differential display of eukaryotic messenger RNA by means of the polymerase chain reaction. Science 257:967–971
Velculescu V, Zhang L, Vogelstein B, Kinzler K (1995) Serial analysis of gene expression. Science 270:484–487
Schena M, Shalon D, Davis R, Brown P (1995) Quantitative monitoring of gene expression patterns with a complementary DNA microarray. Science 270:467–470
Amundson S, Do K, Fornace AJ Jr (1999) Induction of stress genes by low doses of gamma rays. Radiat Res 152:225–231
Schena M, Shalon D, Heller R, Chai A, Brown P, Davis R (1996) Parallel human genome analysis: microarray-based expression monitoring of 1,000 genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93:10614–10619
Pease A, Solas D, Sullivan E, Cronin M, Holmes C, Fodor S (1994) Light-generated oligonucleotide arrays for rapid DNA sequence analysis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 91:5022–5026
Amundson S, Bittner M, Chen Y, Trent J, Meltzer P, Fornace AJ Jr (1999) cDNA microarray hybridization reveals complexity and heterogeneity of cellular genotoxic stress responses. Oncogene 18:3666–3672
Chen Y, Dougherty E, Bittner M (1997) Ratio-based decisions and the quantitative analysis of cDNA microarray images. J Biomed Opt 2:364–374
Kim S, Dougherty E, Chen Y, Sivakumar K, Meltzer P, Trent J, Bittner M (2000) Multivariate measurement of gene expression relationships. Genomics 67:201–209
Amundson S, Shahab S, Bittner M, Meltzer P, Trent J, Fornace AJ Jr (2000) Identification of potential mRNA markers in peripheral blood lymphocytes for human exposure to ionizing radiation. Radiat Res 154:342–346
Amundson S, Patterson A, Do K, Fornace AJ (2002) A nucleotide excision repair master-switch: p53 regulated coordinate induction of global genomic repair genes. Cancer Biol Ther 1:145–149
Amundson S, Lee R, Koch-Paiz CA, Bittner ML, Meltzer P, Trent J, Fornace AJ (2003) Differential responses of stress genes to low dose-rate gamma irradiation. Mol Cancer Res 1:445–452
Wang H, Long X, Sun Z, Rigaud O, Xu Q, Huang Y, Sui J, Bai B, Zhou P (2006) Identification of differentially transcribed genes in human lymphoblastoid cells irradiated with 0.5 Gy of gamma-ray and the involvement of low dose radiation inducible CHD6 gene in cell proliferation and radiosensitivity. Int J Radiat Biol 82:181–190
Little JB (2006) Cellular radiation effects and the bystander response. Mutat Res 597:113–118
Azzam E, De Toledo SM, Little JB (2003) Expression of CONNEXIN43 is highly sensitive to ionizing radiation and other environmental stresses. Cancer Res 63:7128–7135
Azzam E, De Toledo SM, Little J (2001) Direct evidence for the participation of gap junction-mediated intercellular communication in the transmission of damage signals from alpha-particle irradiated to nonirradiated cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:473–478
Zhou H, Ivanov V, Gillespie J, Geard C, Amundson S, Brenner D, Yu Z, Lieberman H, Hei T (2005) Mechanism of radiation-induced bystander effect: role of the cyclooxygenase-2 signaling pathway. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:14641–14646
Chaudhry M (2006) Bystander effect: biological endpoints and microarray analysis. Mutat Res 597:98–112
Yin E, Nelson D, Coleman M, Peterson L, Wyrobek A (2003) Gene expression changes in mouse brain after exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation. Int J Radiat Biol 79:759–775
Ding L, Shingyoji M, Chen F, Hwang J, Burma S, Lee C, Cheng J, Chen D (2005) Gene expression profiles of normal human fibroblasts after exposure to ionizing radiation: a comparative study of low and high doses. Radiat Res 164:17–26
Franco N, Lamartine J, Frouin V, Le Minter P, Petat C, Leplat JJ, Libert F, Gidrol X, Martin MT (2005) Low-dose exposure to gamma rays induces specific gene regulations in normal human keratinocytes. Radiat Res 163:623–635
Goldberg Z, Rocke D, Schwietert C, Berglund S, Santana A, Jones A, Lehmann J, Stern R, Lu R, Hartmann Siantar C (2006) Human in vivo dose-response to controlled, low-dose low linear energy transfer ionizing radiation exposure. Clin Cancer Res 12:3723–3729
Rocke D, Goldberg Z, Schweitert C, Santana A (2005) A method for detection of differential gene expression in the presence of inter-individual variability in response. Bioinformatics 21:3990–3992
Svensson J, Stalpers L, Esveldt-Van LRE, Franken N, Haveman J, Klein B, Turesson I, Vrieling H, Giphart-Gassler M (2006) Analysis of gene expression using gene sets discriminates cancer patients with and without late radiation toxicity. PLoS Med 3:1904–1914
Margolin A, Nemenman I, Basso K, Wiggins C, Stolovitzky G, Dalla Favera R, Califano A (2006) ARACNE: an algorithm for the reconstruction of gene regulatory networks in a mammalian cellular context. BMC Bioinformatics 7(Suppl 1):S7
Basso K, Margolin A, Stolovitzky G, Klein U, Dalla-Favera R, Califano A (2005) Reverse engineering of regulatory networks in human B cells. Nat Genet 37:382–390
Shannon P, Markiel A, Ozier O, Baliga NS, Wang J, Ramage D, Amin N, Schwikowski B, Ideker T (2003) Cytoscape: a software environment for integrated models of biomolecular interaction networks. Genome Res 13:2498–2504
Nikitin A, Egorov S, Daraselia N, Mazo I (2003) Pathway studio––the analysis and navigation of molecular networks. Bioinformatics 19:2155–2157
Ideker T, Thorsson V, Ranish JA, Christmas R, Buhler J, Eng J, Bumgarner R, Goodlett D, Aebersold R, Hood L (2001) Integrated genomic and proteomic analyses of a systematically perturbed metabolic network. Science 292:929–934
Workman CT, Mak H, Mccuine S, Tagne J, Agarwal M, Ozier O, Begley TJ, Samson LD, Ideker T (2006) A systems approach to mapping DNA damage response pathways. Science 312:1054–1059
Birrell GW, Giaever G, Chu A, Davis R, Brown J (2001) A genome-wide screen in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for genes affecting UV radiation sensitivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:12608–12613
Lee W, St Onge RP, Proctor M, Flaherty P, Jordan MI, Arkin A, Davis R, Nislow C, Giaever G (2005) Genome-wide requirements for resistance to functionally distinct DNA-damaging agents. PLoS Genet 1:e24
Game J, Birrell GW, Brown J, Shibata T, Baccari C, Chu A, Williamson M, Brown J (2003) Use of a genome-wide approach to identify new genes that control resistance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to ionizing radiation. Radiat Res 160:14–24
Birrell GW, Brown J, Wu H, Giaever G, Chu A, Davis R, Brown J (2002) Transcriptional response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to DNA-damaging agents does not identify the genes that protect against these agents. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99:8778–8783
Said M, Begley T, Oppenheim A, Lauffenburger D, Samson L (2004) Global network analysis of phenotypic effects: protein networks and toxicity modulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:18006–18011
Mousses S, Caplen NJ, Cornelison R, Weaver D, Basik M, Hautaniemi S, Elkahloun A, Lotufo RA, Choudary A, Dougherty E, Suh E, Kallioniemi O (2003) RNAi microarray analysis in cultured mammalian cells. Genome Res 13:2341–2347
Barcellos-Hoff MH, Costes SV (2006) A systems biology approach to multicellular and multi-generational radiation responses. Mutat Res 597:32–38
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Office of Science (BER), US Department of Energy, Grant no. DE-FG02-07ER46336, and by National Institutes of Health Grant CA 49062.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Presented at the First International Workshop on Systems Radiation Biology, February 14–16, 2007, GSF-Research Centre, Neuherberg, Germany.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Amundson, S.A. Functional genomics in radiation biology: a gateway to cellular systems-level studies. Radiat Environ Biophys 47, 25–31 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-007-0140-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-007-0140-1