Radiation-induced gene expression signatures for triage biodosimetry

Abstract

Medical management of radiation emergencies will require quick and reliable biodosimetric tools for assessment of absorbed dose. Dicentric chromosomal assay (Gold standard) has a limitation of being time intensive, requires specialised human skill and cannot be used for triage and mass screening. Dose assessments of suspected individuals are critical for the medical management of radiation emergencies. For effectively utilizing the available resources, there is an urgent need for developing triage biodosimetry tools for determining the exposure status of suspected individuals. High-throughput methods, utilising the novel “omics” science approaches are emerging as new technologies and gene expression-based biodosimetry is considered a promising technique for radiation dose assessment. Gene expression signatures of radiation have demonstrated the potential for triage biodosimetry. It is a minimally invasive, rapid and reliable approach that has the ability to be a robust field-deployable point-of-care high throughput technique. In addition gene expression based biodosimetry can be useful for long-term epidemiological assessment, clinical radiation oncology and radiodiagnosis.