Influence of Modeled Microgravity on Mouse Reproductive Organs Induced by Carbon-ion Beams

In this paper it was investigated that the effect of modeled microgravity on the acute injury induced by low doses of carbon ions in the male reproductive organs of mice,assessing the risk associated with the space environments.In our study,outbred Kunming mice were stimulated in microgravity by tail suspension,and then were irradiated with the low doses of carbon ions diliuered by HIRFL,and measured the testis and epididymis coefficient,sperm number of epididymis,histological alterations,DNA strand breaks and cell apoptosis.The results demonstrated that carbon ions and stimulated microgravity could induce the damage in the present study.Moreover,most serious injury all occurred in the irradiation group.In addition,it was also found that the damage of the carbon ion irradiation combined microgravity group were lower than those of the irradiation group,while the related mechanism needs the further investigation.