Original research article

Investigation of the bystander effect in CHO-K1 cells

Investigation of the bystander effect in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells (CHO-K1) co-cultured with cells irradiated in the dose range of 0.1–4Gy of high LET ¹² C ions and X-rays.The radiobiological effects of charged heavy particles on a cellular or molecular level are of fundamental importance in the field of biomedical applications, especially in hadron therapy and space radiation biology.A heavy ion ¹² C beam from the Heavy Ion Laboratory of the University of Warsaw (HIL) was used to irradiate CHO-K1 cells. Cells were seeded in Petri dishes specially designed for irradiation purposes. Immediately after irradiation, cells were transferred into transwell culture insert dishes to enable co-culture of irradiated and non-irradiated cells. Cells from the membrane and well shared the medium but could not touch each other. To study bystander effects, a clonogenic survival assay was performed.The survival fraction of cells co-cultured with cells irradiated with ¹² C ions and X-rays was not reduced.The bystander effect was not observed in these studies.