title: High sensitivity of murine teratocarcinoma cells to UV radiation and the effect of post-irradiation treatment with caffeine.
abstract: The radiosensitivity of murine teratocarcinoma cells was investigated. Our findings are as follows: (1) the undifferentiated teratocarcinoma cells are 3 times more sensitive to UV than their differentiated counterpart and BALB/3T3 cells; (2) X-ray sensitivity of the undifferentiated cells is comparable to that of BALB/3T3 cells; (3) post-irradiation treatment with caffeine strongly sensitizes a fraction of the undifferentiated cells to UV and X-rays resulting in biphasic survival curves of the cells; (4) high UV sensitivity and hyper-sensitization by caffeine is lost upon differentiation of the cells. Possible mechanisms for the unusually high sensitivity of undifferentiated teratocarcinoma cells to radiation and post-irradiation treatment with caffeine will be discussed.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002110:Caffeine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000187:drug effects / Q000528:radiation effects; D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects / Q000528:radiation effects; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D011836:Radiation Tolerance; D013724:Teratoma / Q000473:pathology*; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays
chemical_list: D002110:Caffeine