Lymphocyte succinate and lactate dehydrogenase activity, induced ROS of neutrophils, and leukocyte DNA damage in the blood of mice irradiated with carbon ions

At the present time, the studies carried out to improve the radiotherapy of tumors using accelerated heavy ions are of great interest, since they give off the main energy at the end of the run at the Bragg peak, which increases the severity of radiation damage to the tumor and minimizes damage to surrounding healthy tissues. In this work, the levels of lymphocyte lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity, the ratio of LDH/SDH, induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) of neutrophils, and leukocytes DNA damage (%TDNA) in blood 1 day after accelerated carbon ions irradiation of mice with an energy of 450 MeV/nucleon in doses of 0.2-2 Gy in the Bragg peak were determined. Found: SDH activity increased at doses of 0.2-1 Gy and sharply decreased at a dose of 1.5 Gy in all mice. With a decrease in SDH activity, glycolysis (LDH activity) increased compensatory, which, apparently, is associated with the developing mitochondrial dysfunction of immune cells. The %TDNA of leukocytes increased depending on the dose and was accompanied by a decrease in the functional activity of neutrophils - the zymosan-induced ROS production decreased. Thus, against the background of an increased %TDNA and a decrease in SDH activity, glycolysis becomes of great importance. The applied methods are highly sensitive and can be used to detect individual differences in animals that are biological models in preclinical studies.