Effect of ionizing radiation on transcriptome during neural differentiation of hESC

Differentiation of hESCs to neural lineages was used as a model for early embryonic brain development in order to assess the effect of their exposure to low (17 mGy) and high (572 mGy) doses of radiation on gene expression. Exposure of hESC to the low dose did not result in changes in gene expression at any of the time points, whereas exposure to the high dose resulted in downregulation of some major neurodifferentiation markers on days 6 and 10. Gene ontology analysis showed that pathways related to nervous system development, neurogenesis, and generation of neurons were among the most affected. Conclusion: exposure to a low dose of 17 mGy was well tolerated by hESCs while exposure to 572 mGy significantly affected their genetic reprogramming into neuronal lineages. Transcriptomes were assessed by RNA sequencing during neural differentiation at three time points in control and irradiated samples in three biological replicates. The first time point was when the cells were still pluripotent (day 0), the second time point was during the stage of embryoid body formation (day 6), and the last time point was during the stage of neural rosette formation (day 10).