The role of autophagy in cell survival from heavy ion irradiation in the plateau region

To study cytotoxic effect of heavy ion irradiation in the plateau region, and investigate whether autophagy induced by heavy ion irradiation is cytoprotective, HeLa cells were irradiated with 350 MeV/u carbon ions beams, and the clonogenic survival was analyzed. The results showed that cell survival decreased with increasing doses. It was also found that G2/M-phase cells increased, and the autophagy-related activity was significantly higher than the control. When autophagy was blocked by 3-methyladenine in carbon-ion irradiated cells, G2/M phase arrest and the percentage of apoptosis cells were further elevated, and cell survival decreased significantly, indicating the induction of cytoprotective autophagy by carbon-ion irradiation. Our results demonstrated that autophagy induced by carbon ion irradiation provided a self-protective mechanism in HeLa cells, short-time inhibition of autophagy before carbon-ion irradiation could enhance radiation cytotoxicity in HeLa cells.