Identifying Non-Invasive Molecular Correlates relevant to Irradiation-Skin Burn Combined Injuries

Currently there is growing concern with respect to scenarios where people are likely to be presented with radiation exposure along with many kinds of other injuries such as trauma and infection. The potential for such scenarios was brought to reality with the events and aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. As such medical complications arising from such exposures would be poorly dealt with as no evidence-based guidelines exist for their rehabilitation or recovery. Our research intends to differentially characterize combined radiation and burn injuries and identify novel pathways and biomarkers. Such findings will lead to better medical practices in the diagnosis, care and rehabilitation of affected individuals. The study includes four groups of mice: 1) Control sham mice group (n=4), 2) Skin burn injury mice group (n=6), 3) Radiation injury mice group (n=6), 4) Combined radiation and burn injury mice group (n=6). We propose to characterize the effects of combined radiation and burn injuries using microRNA microarray analysis. Our primary aim is to identify novel molecular pathways and biomarkers specific to whole blood samples (serum) from mice exposed to combined radiation and burn injuries. B6D2F1/J female mice will be used. 30 days following combined radiation and burn injuries arterial blood will be harvested from euthanized mice. 200ul of serum from whole blood samples will be used for microRNA microarray experiments (Affymetrix).