Prediction of Radiosensitivity of Acetylated Cell Through FTIR Spectroscopy

Histone acetylation is one of important epigenetic modifications, and histone in most of tumor cells shows low acetylation state. However, histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) can correct abnormal acetylation status, induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Trichostatin A (TSA) is one of the representatives of histone deacetylase inhibitors, which can inhibit histone deacetylase, increase the acetylation level of histone and nonhistone in cell. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a powerful analytical tool which can detect nondestructively, quatitatively and quantitatively biological samples without bio-tagging and bio-labeling. FTIR spectroscopy technology has multiple advantages, including finger-print characteristics, rapid analysis, high resolution and good repeatability. Therefore, it has been widely used in the research of biological processes. This work applied FTIR spectroscopy to study the changes in cells treated with TSA, compared the acetylation level according to FTIR intensity ratio of methyl to methylene stretching vibration, and based on the FTIR analysis predicted the radiosensitivity of the cells with different acetylation levels. As a result, we have verified that the damage caused by radiation in acetylated cells can be evaluated by the ratio of methyl and methylene intensity which is positively correlated with cellular radiosensitivity. Therefore, this work demonstrates that FTIR spectroscopy can be useful for the prediction of radiosensitivity and may also open a door for the study of relationship between epigenetics and radiation bio-effects.