Acute and long-term responses to radiation in zebrafish

A set of changes is identified in the transcription profile associated with the long-term, but not the acute, response to radiation exposure. The study was performed in vivo using zebrafish. To study the long-term response, 24 hour post-fertilization embryos were exposed to 0.1 Gy (low dose) or 1.0 Gy (moderate dose) of whole-body gamma radiation and allowed to develop for 16 weeks. Liver mRNA profiles were then analyzed using the Affymetrix microarray platform, with validation by quantitative PCR. To be able to compare this to the acute response, 16-week old adults were exposed at the same doses and analyzed after 4 hours. We used 5 treatment groups: A=non-irradiated control, allowed to develop for 16 weeks; B=low-dose (0.1 Gy) irradiated, allowed to develop for 16 weeks; C=high-dose (1.0 Gy) irradiate, allowed to develop for 16 weeks; D=16 week old adults irradiated at low dose (0.1 Gy); E=16 week old adults irradiate at high dose (1.0 Gy)