Comparison of Three Different Entry Molecules for Probing a Metabolic Response to Radiation Exposure by Two-Dimensional NMR Spectroscopy

Humans are continuously exposed to radiation, originating from natural backgrounds or artificial sources. We focused on the X-ray irradiations to which people are exposed during routine medical checkups. We probed the cellular metabolic responses by feeding human umbilical vein endothelial cells with three different ¹³C-labeled molecules, which was followed by irradiation with three different doses of X-rays, which was followed by four different incubation periods. We monitored the downstream metabolites via two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy to figure out what input was best suited for our purpose. We found that even though the glucose provided the highest number of metabolized products, the glutamine, which was the lowest, provided as much information as the glucose. Second, the glucose and the glutamine were suitable for the purpose of probing the recovery process, but pyruvate was not suitable. Lastly, 48 h seemed to be needed for the cells to recover from the irradiation shock.