Radiation Biology Research Communications
Immunosenescence and radiation carcinogenesis
1
Department of Radiation Medical Sciences, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University,
2
Life Sciences and Radiation Research, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University
Keiji Suzuki
1, 2, Aidana Amrenova
2(Accepted for publication November 16 2020)
*
Through the epidemiological studies involving atomic bomb survivors and childhood thyroid cancers after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident it is well established that exposure to ionizing radiation causes cancer, however, the exact role of radiation in carcinogenesis process has not been fully understood yet. While studies so far have investigated genetic and epigenetic changes that are taken place in tissue stem cells and their progenies, recent advances in cancer biology have demonstrated that multi-layered communications, such as those between the initial cancer cells and their microenvironment and systemic immunity, play critical roles in cancer development. Thus, multi-faceted studies should be necessary for comprehensive understandings of carcinogenesis processes. Particularly, an inevitable involvement of immunosenescence in age- related increase in cancer risk is becoming as an essential part of the multi-faceted studies, so that it should be appropriate to discuss a role of immunosenescence in radiation-induced carcinogenesis.
In the current review, general views of the immune system, anti-cancer immunity, and immunosenescence are provided. Adverse effects of radiation exposure on the immune system are also described. Finally, more attention will be paid for a possible role of thymic involution in radiation-induced cancer.
Key words: Radiation exposure, carcinogenesis, anti-cancer immunity, immunosenescence, thymic involution
