Induction of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Senescence by Ionizing Radiation.

Exposure to ionizing radiation (IR) and certain chemotherapeutic agents not only causes acute bone marrow (BM) suppression but also leads to long-term residual hematopoietic injury. This later effect has been attributed to the damage to hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self-renewal. Using a mouse model, we investigated whether IR induces senescence in HSCs, as induction of HSC senescence can lead to the impairment of HSC self-renewal. The results showed that exposure of C57BL/6 mice to a sublethal dose (6.5 Gy) of total body irradiation (TBI) resulted in a long-lasting quantitative and qualitative reduction in HSCs (Lin⁻ c-kit⁺ Sca-1⁺ or LKS⁺ cells). Compared to control HSCs, HSCs from irradiated BM at 4 weeks after TBI exhibited a significant reduction in day-35 CAFC frequency and deficiency in cell proliferation and colony formation in a single cell culture assay stimulated with SCF/TPO and SCF/TPO/IL-3, respectively. In addition, transplantation of irradiated HSCs (500 LKS⁺ cells/recipient) produced less than 1% long-term (2-month) engraftment in a competitive repopulation assay while transplantation of the same number of control HSCs resulted in 24.8% engraftment. Furthermore, HSCs from irradiated mice expressed increased levels of p16^Ink4a and senescence-associated beta-galactosidase (SA-beta-gal), two commonly used biomarkers of cellular senescence. In contrast, hematopoietic progenitor cells (Lin⁻ c-kit⁺ Sca-1⁻ or LKS⁻ cells) from irradiated mice did not show significant changes in clonogenesity in a CFU assay and expressed minimal levels of p16^Ink4a and SA-beta-gal. These results suggest that exposure to IR can induce senescence selectively in HSCs but not in HPCs. Interestingly, this IR- induced HSC senescence was associated with a prolonged elevation of p21^Cip1/Waf1, p16^Ink4a and p19^ARF mRNA expression, whereas the expression of p27^Kip1, p18^Ink4c and p19 ^Ink4d mRNA was not increased. This suggests that p21^Cip1/Waf1, p16^Ink4a and p19^ARF may play an important role in IR-induced senescence in HSCs, since their expression has been implicated in the initiation, establishment and maintenance of cellular senescence. Therefore, these findings provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying IR-induced long-term BM damage. This could lead to the discovery of novel molecular targets for intervention to circumvent IR-induced BM toxicity. In addition, understanding how normal HSCs senesce after IR and chemotherapy will help us to elucidate the molecular mechanisms whereby leukemia/cancer stem cells evade these cancer treatments and provide better knowledge of organismal aging.