The Role of Glutathione in Determining Chromosome Radiosensitivity in Lung and Prostate Cancer Patients

Abstract

One of the major problems in the radiation treatment of cancer is that they have different sensitivities to radiation. Although these different sensitivities originate from many factors such as cell repair ability, repair rate, and increased damage tolerance, the initial damage levels caused by radiation are important in human tumor cells. There is a role of non-protein thiols in the observation of the first damage levels in the DNA molecule. In particular, glutathione (GSH) can reduce the radiosensitivity of cells by reducing the amount of free radicals generated by radiation due to its effect on free radical detoxification caused by radiation.
In this study, chromosome radiosensitivity determined by micronucleus formation in peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients who were diagnosed with lung and prostate cancer and who had not started radiation therapy and GSH levels and were measured and the role of GSH in radiosensitivity was studied. MN formation frequencies measured as a result of irradiation of patients with lung cancer were not different from the MN frequencies of prostate cancer patients. This shows that lung and prostate patients have a similar radiosensitivity spectrum. There was no significant difference in GSH levels between the two groups in the patients, although decreasing GSH levels with age in prostate cancer group and increasing GSH levels with age in the lung cancer group was observed. When the data of both groups were combined, no correlation was observed between the micronucleus frequencies and GSH levels measured in lymphocytes of patients (r=-0.34). The GSH molecule did not have a role in determining the radiosensitivity of cells.