Injected proteins protect mice from radiation poisoning

Nature News ^ | 25 June 2012 | Brendan Borrell

[neverdem]

Two drugs increase survival of mice even after radiation exposure.

Two anti-clotting compounds already approved for use in humans may have a surprising role in treating radiation sickness. The findings, reported online today in Nature Medicine, also reveal another avenue for understanding and treating the effects of radiation exposure.

Last year's nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, renewed anxiety over the lack of treatments for radiation poisoning. It was long thought that the effects of exposure to high doses of radiation were instantaneous and irreversible, leading to destruction of the gut and loss of bone marrow cells, which damages blood-cell production and the immune system. As a precaution against mass radiation poisoning, many governments stock a treatment called granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. This boosts bone marrow function, but it must be kept refrigerated, has occasional side effects, and must be taken as soon as possible after a disaster has occured.

Hartmut Geiger, a stem-cell biologist at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, and his colleagues have uncovered a therapeutic strategy that can be deployed up to 24 hours after radiation exposure. “Most people think the game is over after you have the damage,” says Geiger. “Now, we know you can modify that.”

The two compounds are thrombomodulin (Solulin/Recomodulin), currently approved in Japan to prevent thrombosis, and activated protein C (Xigris). Xigris, made by pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana, was a leading drug for treating inflammation from blood poisoning until it was pulled from the US market last October because of a lack of efficacy. In experiments by Geiger and his colleagues, treating mice with either drug led to an eightfold increase in key bone marrow cells needed for the production of white blood cells, and improved the survival rates of mice receiving lethal radiation doses by 40–80%...

[neverdem]

Citation title: Pharmacological targeting of the thrombomodulin–activated protein C pathway mitigates radiation toxicity"

Both Nature Medicine and ScienceDaily, Boosting Blood System Protein Complex Protects Against Radiation Toxicity, gave links to the same error messages.

[wastedyears]

Dr. Geiger, Geiger counter... I wonder if this Dr. is related to the inventor of the counter.

[freedumb2003]

Injected proteins protect mice from radiation poisoning

But where will our superheroes come from?????

[Pontiac]

Excellent find

Thanks