title: [Mechanism of radiation death of human peripheral blood lymphocytes, assessed by the DNA-comet method].
abstract: Radiation-induced death of human peripheral blood lymphocytes (HPBL) was studied using the comet assay. It has been shown that gamma-irradiation induced simultaneously two forms of death, necrosis and apoptosis which may be discriminated by the comet assay. Three groups of comets formed by HPBL are specified: symmetric/slowly asymmetric comets attributed to viable cells (C0/C1-class of comets); comets reminding "tear-drop" (C3/C4-class of comets) which are characterized by decreased total fluorescence of comet and formed by dying/dead (necrotic or apoptotic) cells; intermediate form of comets (C2-class), containing head, tail and attributed to cells committed to apoptosis (containing high molecular weight fragments of DNA). Kinetics of C2-comets permits detection of early stage of apoptotic death of irradiated HPBL.
authors.affiliation: Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: V A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Tronov
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Tereshchenko
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Konopliannikov
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D005720:Gamma Rays; D006801:Humans; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000528:radiation effects*