Raman spectroscopy monitoring of MCF10A cells irradiated by protons at clinical doses

Abstract

Purpose: Proton therapy has been recently proposed as a radiotherapy form for breast cancer treatment in view of its potentially decreased normal-tissue toxicity compared with conventional photon-based radiotherapy. However, the risks for the healthy tissue cannot be completely eliminated. In the present study, the suitability of Raman spectroscopy to monitor the radiosensitivity of normal cells exposed to clinical proton beam was investigated.

Materials and methods: MCF10A normal human breast cells were irradiated at two different proton doses: 0.5 Gy and 4 Gy. They were fixed immediately after irradiation and measured by means of Raman spectroscopy technique. The obtained data were analyzed both by evaluating the intensity ratio of specific Raman spectral peaks and through Multivariate Distance Matrix Regression technique.

Results: Certain Raman peaks associated with DNA showed a systematic suppression at both dose levels. In particular, the intensity of a Raman peak at 784 cm⁻¹, related to a stretching mode inside the phosphate group of DNA, is very sensitive to the proton beam exposure, even at the lowest investigated dose. Therefore, it could be considered as a spectral marker of cytogenetic damage.

Conclusions: The obtained results are encouraging for the future of Raman spectroscopy in radiobiology research, particularly for improving risk assessment in the field of proton radiotherapy. Specifically, these findings validate Raman spectroscopy to measure biological response in human breast cells exposed to standard proton therapy doses used in clinical setting.

Keywords:

• Radiation therapy
• proton beam
• Raman spectroscopy

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests related to this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), project ETHICS (“Pre-clinical experimental and theoretical studies to improve treatment and protection by charged particles”).

Notes on contributors

Maria Lasalvia

Maria Lasalvia is a Biologist working at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the University of Foggia, Italy. She has a PhD in “Men and Environment” and her research is focused on the biophysical techniques applied to biological cells and phenomena concerning cancer effects induced by xenobiotic agents.

Giuseppe Perna

Giuseppe Perna is associate professor of Applied Physics at University of Foggia, Italy. At present, his main research activities are focused on the application of vibrational techniques to investigate biological samples.

Lorenzo Manti

Lorenzo Manti is associate professor of Applied Physics at Naples University. He has a long-standing research experience in radiation biology, is currently President of the European Radiation Research Society (www.errs.eu) and PI of the funding project ETHICS.

Javier Rasero

Javier Rasero is a postdoctoral fellow at the Biocruces Health Research Institute, Spain. He has a PhD in Physics and his research is focused on the application and development of advanced multivariate methods to infer and predict from biomedicine data, especially in the brain study field.

Sebastiano Stramaglia

Sebastiano Stramaglia is associate professor of Applied Physics at Bari University, Italy. His main interests are pattern recognition in Neuroimaging and causality analysis of complex signals.

Vito Capozzi

Vito Capozzi is full professor in Applied Physics at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the University of Foggia, Italy. He has a long research experience in solid state physics and vibrational optical spectroscopies of biological cells, where the effects of nanoparticles, chemical agents and radiations are investigated.