DNA Damage and Repair after Radiation

Dear Colleagues,

Ionizing radiation is genotoxic and can be harmful. It can increase mutations and lead to genomic instability, resulting in an elevated risk for carcinogenesis. On the other hand, the cytotoxic effect of radiation is useful in cancer therapy and can be beneficial to humans. These cytotoxic and genotoxic effects derive from various kinds of DNA damage produced by ionizing radiation, such as DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), single-strand breaks, base damages, and various cross-linking reactions. Among these types of DNA damage, DSBs are the most severe . If DNA DSBs are not repaired or are mis-repaired, irradiated cells will suffer from various biological consequences, such as cellular death, chromosomal abnormalities, mutations, and cellular transformation.

This Special Issue will provide readers information on “the mechanisms of DNA damages produced by ionizing radiation.” Especially, it will collect papers on the direct and indirect actions of ionizing radiation, effects of radical scavengers and antioxidants, complex DNA damages produced by high-LET radiation, effects of hypoxic conditions, and other related topics. Radio-mimicking agents and replication-mediated DNA damages are also relevant topics of research to understand radiation-induced DNA damages.

Moreover, this Special Issue will provide readers information on “the mechanisms of DNA repair.” It will include papers on the behavior of radiation-responding DNA repair and signaling proteins, effects of loss or inhibition to these proteins, and repair in specific environments, such as hyperthermia, non-isotonic salt conditions, poor nutrition. Repair during split-dose irradiations, low-dose irradiation, and combination with sensitizers and anti-tumor agents are also topics of interest.

In this Special Issue, we expect to publish research manuscripts reporting computer-software simulations, in vitro chemical reactions, cellular and in vivo analyses. In addition, studies on translational research regarding experimental radiotherapeutics and radiation-induced carcinogenesis in model animals are welcome. Therefore, this collection of interdisciplinary papers on radiation-induced DNA damage and repair will be a good reference for a broad range of readers, including modelers, biologists, and clinical researchers.

Dr. Takamitsu A Kato
Dr. Mami Murakami
Guest Editors

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