Microbeam Application in Radiation Biology

The microbeam facility can provide micrometer scale localized and predefined ionizing radiation in the life science study, and the microbeam techniques play a unique role in determining the target substances of ionizing radiation, as well as in the study of radiation sensitivity, mechanisms of radiation damage response and repair. This paper summarizes the technical developments of biological microbeam facilities and their applications in the studies of low-dose radiation effect, bystander effect and cellular signaling. This paper also introduces the recent developments at the heavy-ion microbeam facility in the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP), which can provide heavy ion microbeam irradiation with energy of 7~80 MeV/u and LET of 30~3000 keV/μm. The facility can perform radiobiological irradiation and online investigation in living cells and mice, including bystander effect study, sleeping system influence after irradiation to mice hypothalamus and the recruitment dynamics of XRCC1 protein.