Effects of Heavy Ion Radiation on Rat Frontal Cortex Studied by 1H NMR Based Metabonomics Data Analysis
利用基于1H NMR的代谢组学分析研究重离子辐射对大鼠额叶皮质区的影响

Space radiation, especially heavy-ion radiation, can cause the damages to DNA, cell death and incidence of some types of cancer. We studied the effects of heavy-ion radiation on cerebral metabolism in rats. To simulate the biological effects of space heavy ions radiation on the central nervous system (CNS), rats heads were exposed to 12C6+ particle beam. The 1H NMR based metabonomics approach was used to analyze the changes in metabolic profiles of the frontal cortex of the rats exposed to radiation. The results revealed that heavy-ion radiation caused significant changes in the levels of some cerebral metabolites, including taurine, lactate, creatine, myo-inositol, phosphorylcholine and some key neurotransmitters (i.e., glutamate and 4-aminobutyric acid). The results of further differential proteomics analysis showed that there were significant changes in the neurotransmitter synthesis pathway and neurotransmitter receptor-mediated signaling pathways after heavy-ion radiation. The findings from this study provided useful information on the molecular mechanism of the effects of heavy-ion radiation on cerebral metabolism.