Abstract
Purpose of this Review
It has generally been thought that fetuses are highly sensitive to radiation-induced cancer. Epidemiologic case-control studies indicated that X-ray exposures given to pregnant women (on the order of 1 cGy) could have increased the risk of developing childhood leukemia and solid cancers in the offspring. The authors wished to re-consider this observation.
Recent Findings
Atomic bomb survivors who were exposed in utero were found to show almost no increase in the frequency of translocations in their blood lymphocytes when the survivors were examined at around 40 years of age. Subsequent animal studies revealed that tissue stem cells in embryos/fetuses may or may not retain radiation-induced chromosome damage depending on the developmental stage at the time of irradiation.
Summary
Our data are compatible with the model that radiation effects can be recorded only when an exposure occurs after the stem cells have settled in their appropriate niche, and that a small fraction of fetal hematopoietic stem cells began making long-term contributions to the lymphoid cell pool in both mice and humans. It remains to be established whether or not the increased risk of childhood leukemia and other childhood cancers was caused by fetal X-ray exposures of about 1 cGy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance
Stewart A, Webb J, Hewitt D. A survey of childhood malignancies. Br Med J. 1958;1:1495–508.
Stewart A, Kneale GW. Radiation dose effects in relation to obstetric x-rays and childhood cancers. Lancet. 1970;1:1185–8.
Bithell JF, Stewart AM. Pre-natal irradiation and childhood malignancy: a review of British data from the Oxford survey. Br J Cancer. 1975;31:271–88.
Ozasa K, Shimizu Y, Suyama A, Kasagi F, Soda M, Grant EJ, et al. Studies of the mortality of atomic bomb survivors, report 14, 1950-2003: an overview of cancer and noncancer diseases. Radiat Res. 2012;177:229–43.
Grant EJ, Brenner A, Sugiyama H, Sakata R, Sadakane A, Utada M, et al. Solid cancer incidence among the life span study of atomic bomb survivors: 1958-2009. Radiat Res. 2017;187:513–37.
•• Hsu WL, Preston DL, Soda M, Sugiyama H, Funamoto S, Kodama K, et al. The incidence of leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma among atomic bomb survivors: 1950-2001. Radiat Res. 2013;179:261–82. This is a summary paper which described risks for hematologic malignancies among A-bomb survivors.
Wakeford R. Childhood leukaemia following medical diagnostic exposure to ionizing radiation in utero or after birth. Radiat Prot Dosim. 2008;132:166–74.
Boice JD Jr, Miller RW. Childhood and adult cancer after intrauterine exposure to ionizing radiation. Teratology. 1999;59:227–33.
Schuz J, Deltour I, Krestinina LY, Tsareva YV, Tolstykh EI, Sokolnikov ME, et al. In utero exposure to radiation and haematological malignancies: pooled analysis of southern Urals cohorts. Br J Cancer. 2017;116:126–33. https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.2016.373.
Doll R, Wakeford R. Risk of childhood cancer from fetal irradiation. Br J Radiol. 1997;70:130–9.
•• Brent RB. Carcinogenic risks of prenatal ionizing radiation. Semin Fetal Neonatal Med. 2014;19:203–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.siny.2013.11.009. This is a review paper regarding cancer risks of people who were exposed to radiation during fetal life.
•• Hamasaki K, Landes RD, Noda A, Nakamura N, Kodama Y. Irradiation at different fetal stages results in different translocation frequencies in adult mouse thyroid cells. Radiat Res. 2016;186:360–6. This study found that irradiation of mouse fetuses at an early developmental stage failed to record chromosome damage in thyroid epithelial cells, which is in contrast to the results following irradiation of mouse fetuses at later developmental stages.
Delongchamp R, Mabuchi K, Yoshimoto Y, Preston D. Cancer mortality among atomic bomb survivors exposed in utero or as young children, October 1950-May 1992. Radiat Res. 1997;147:385–95.
Ohtaki K, Kodama Y, Nakano M, Itoh M, Awa AA, Cologne J, et al. Human fetuses do not register chromosome damage inflicted by radiation exposure in lymphoid precursor cells except for a small but significant effect at low doses. Radiat Res. 2004;161:373–9.
Jablon S, Kato H. Childhood cancer in relation to prenatal exposure to A-bomb radiation. Lancet. 1970;2:1000–3.
Mori H, Colman SM, Xiao Z, Ford AM, Healy LE, Donaldson C, et al. Chromosome translocations and covert leukemic clones are generated during normal fetal development. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002;99:8242–7.
Greaves MF, Wiemels J. Origins of chromosome translocation in childhood leukemia. Nat Rev Cancer. 2003;3(9):639–49.
Court Brown WM, Doll R. Leukemia in children and young adult life. Br Med J. 1961;1:981–8.
Fraumeni JF Jr, Miller RW. Epidemiology of human leukemia: recent observations. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1967;38:593–605.
Kinlen LJ. An examination, with a meta-analysis, of studies of childhood leukaemia in relation to population mixing. Br J Cancer. 2012;107:1163–8.
Greaves M. A causal mechanism for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Nat Rev Cancer. 2018;18:471–84. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-018-0015-6.
Buckton KE, Court Brown WM, Smith PG. Lymphocyte survival in men treated with X-rays for ankylosing spondylitis. Nature. 1967;214:470–3.
Nakano M, Kodama Y, Ohtaki K, Nakashima E, Niwa O, Toyoshima M, et al. Chromosome aberrations do not persist in the lymphocytes or bone marrow cells of mice irradiated in utero or soon after birth. Radiat Res. 2007;167:693–702.
•• Nakano M, Kodama Y, Ohtaki K, Nakamura N. Translocations in spleen cells from adult mice irradiated as fetuses are infrequent, but often clonal in nature. Radiat Res. 2012;178:600–3. This paper described that clonal translocations were detected in spleen cells of adult mice that were irradiated as fetuses, even though the frequency of translocations was quite low.
Ito M, Honda T. Cytogenetic study of in utero exposed individuals, part 2. J Nagasaki Med Assoc. 1986;61:369–72 in Japanese.
Nakano M, Kodama Y, Ohtaki K, Itoh M, Awa AA, Cologne J, et al. Estimating the number of hematopoietic or lymphoid stem cells giving rise to clonal chromosome aberrations in blood T lymphocytes. Radiat Res. 2004;161:273–81.
Nakamura N, Nakano M, Kodama Y, Ohtaki K, Cologne J, Awa AA. Prediction of clonal chromosome aberration frequency in human blood lymphocytes. Radiat Res. 2004;161(3):282–9.
Göthert JR, Gustin SE, Hall MA, Green AR, Gottgens B, Izon DJ, et al. In vivo fate-tracing studies using the Scl stem cell enhancer: embryonic hematopoietic stem cells significantly contribute to adult hematopoiesis. Blood. 2005;105:2724–32.
Tanaka Y, Hayashi M, Kubota Y, Nagai H, Sheng G, Nishikawa S, et al. Early ontogenic origin of the hematopoietic stem cell lineage. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109:4515–20. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1115828109.
Dobson RL, Kwan TC. The RBE of tritium radiation measured in mouse oocytes: increase at low exposure levels. Radiat Res. 1976;66:615–25.
Potten CS. Extreme sensitivity of some intestinal crypt cells to X and gamma irradiation. Nature. 1977;269:518–21.
Inouye M, Kameyama Y. Cell death in the developing rat cerebellum following X-irradiation of 3 to 100 rad: a quantitative study. J Radiat Res. 1983;24:259–69.
Kameyama Y, Inoue M. Irradiation injury to the developing nervous system: Mechanisms of neuronal injury. Neurotoxicology. 1994;15:75–80.
•• Nakano M, Nishimura M, Hamasaki K, Mishima S, Yoshida M, Nakata A, et al. Fetal irradiation of rats induces persistent translocations in mammary epithelial cells similar to the level after adult irradiation, but not in hematolymphoid cells. Radiat Res. 2014;181:172–6. This paper described that the frequency of translocations in mammary epithelial cells of rats irradiated as fetuses was the same as that irradiated as adults.
Mikkola HK, Orkin SH. The journey of developing hematopoietic stem cells. Development. 2006;133:3733–44.
Gao X, Xu C, Asada N, Frenette PS. The hematopoietic stem cell niche: from embryo to adult, vol. 145; 2018. p. 1–12.
Bowie MB, McKnight KD, Kent DG, McCaffrey L, Hoodless PA, Eaves CJ. Hematopoietic stem cells proliferate until after birth and show a reversible phase-specific engraftment defect. J Clin Invest. 2006;116:2808–16.
Weissenborn U, Streffer C. Analysis of structural and numerical chromosome aberrations at the first and second mitosis after X irradiation of two-cell mouse embryos. Radiat Res. 1989;117:214–20.
•• Jacquet P, van Buul P, van Duijn-Goedhart A, Reynaud K, Buset J, Neefs M, et al. Radiation sensitivity of the gastrula-stage embryo: chromosome aberrations and mutation induction in lacZ transgenic mice: the roles of DNA double-strand break repair systems. Mutat Res Genet Toxicol Environ Mutagen. 2015;792:26–34. This paper showed that cells at early developmental stages are difficult to undergo exchange-type aberrations as compared with simple chromosome breaks.
Perini GF, Ribeiro GN, Pinto Neto JV, Campos LT, Hamerschlak N. BCL-2 as therapeutic target for hematological malignancies. J Hematol Oncol. 2018;11, 65. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13045-018-0608-2.
Hauer J, Borkhardt A, Sanchez-Garcia I, Cobaleda C. Genetically engineered mouse models of human B-cell precursor leukemias. Cell Cycle. 2014;13:2836–46.
Caughey RW, Michels KB. Birth weight and childhood leukemia: a meta-analysis and review of the current evidence. Int J Cancer. 2009;124:2658–70.
Tower RL, Spector LG. The epidemiology of childhood leukemia with a focus on birth weight and diet. Crit Rev Clin Lab Sci. 2007;44:203–42.
O’Neill KA, Murphy MF, Bunch KJ, Puumala SE, Carozza SE, Chow EJ, et al. Infant birthweight and risk of childhood cancer: international population-based case control studies of 40 000 cases. Int J Epidemiol. 2015;44:153–68.
Manson RR, MacMahon B. Prenatal X-ray exposure and cancer in children. In: Boice JD, Fraumeni JF, editors. Radiation carcinogenesis: epidemiology and biological significance. New York: Raven Press; 1984. p. 97–105.
Wakeford R, Bithell JF. Childhood cancer--the role of birthweight and antenatal radiography. Int J Epidemiol. 2015;44:1741–3.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr. L. Kapp for his careful reading of the manuscript and an anonymous reviewer for valuable suggestions.
Funding
The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, is a public interest foundation funded by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) and the US Department of Energy (DOE). This publication was supported by RERF Research Protocols 8-93 and 6-11. This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI grant no. 24710067: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) to KH.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Kanya Hamasaki and Nori Nakamura declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent
All reported studies/experiments with human or animal subjects performed by the authors have been previously published and complied with all applicable ethical standards (including the Helsinki declaration and its amendments, institutional/national research committee standards, and international/national/institutional guidelines).
Disclaimer
The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the two governments.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Radiation Biology and Stem Cells
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hamasaki, K., Nakamura, N. Effect of Radiation Exposures on Fetal Hematopoietic Cells. Curr Stem Cell Rep 5, 92–99 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-019-00159-w
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-019-00159-w