STUDIES ON THE EFFECTS OF IRRADIATION OF CELLULAR PARTICULATES. V. ACCELERATION OF RECOVERY OF PHOSPHORYLATION BY POLYANIONS

¹ Department of Biology, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.

Male rats exposed to 800 r gamma radiation were injected post-irradiation with various polyanions and polycations and with a cell-free extract of rat spleen. Inactivation of oxidative phosphorylation by the irradiation was reversed by the spleen extract and by the polyanions, but not by the polycations. The data suggest that one of the functions (and possibly the only function) of cell-free extracts derived from spleen tissue is the restoration of oxidative phosphorylation in irradiated organisms. Since this effect can be duplicated by any of several commercially prepared polyanions, it seems unlikely that the spleen has in it a special agent responsible for effecting radiation protection. The data obtained with oxidative phosphorylation are in no way contradictory to the cellular replacement hypothesis of increased survival after exposure to radiation; they merely explain a possible mode of action of humoral agents which are known to have a limited effect on survival. Failure of PES to increase survival under the same conditions in which it recouples phosphorylation would seem to indicate that survival and regeneration of the phosphorylation mechanism are independent processes.