The disturbances of the relationship between oxidative homeostasis and the immune status of lymphocytes in liquidators of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident

: We investigated into the relations between the immune status of individuals who took part in liquidating the consequences of the Chernobyl accident (liquidators) and the level of active oxygen forms in peripheral blood lymphocytes, as well as the level of the genome damage in lymphocytes (frequency of cells with micronuclei). The results show that the immune status changes as the level of the genome damage increases: the content of some markers increases and others decreases. It has also been shown that a) active oxygen forms participate in forming some indexes of the immunological lymphocyte status and b) the exposure of liquidators to irradiation many years ago almost completely changes the characteristics of the relation between the concentration of active oxygen forms and immunological status indexes. It has been shown that there are many more immunological indexes that experienced changes in their relation with the concentration of active oxygen forms than the amount of indexes associated with the genome damage. It has been found that a) there is little difference in the concentration of active oxygen forms in donors and liquidators and b) the concentration is not associated with the level of the genome damage. Taking this into account, the authors speculate that the changes in the relation between the concentration of active oxygen forms and the immunological indexes are reflection of how irradiation influences the level of the immune status formation based on the relation between the concentration of active oxygen forms and the appearance of a marker in the immune status. The obtained results point to the new, previously unknown aspects of how the primary injuries which are the result of the low dose irradiation influence the health of irradiated individuals. The changes in relations that can be seen in liquidators in comparison with donors lead to a different set of immunological indexes as well as to different immune status, and may become the reason for the deterioration in their health. The authors suppose that the above results could be a substantial contribution to the research into the fundamental mechanisms of the human immune status formation and human health.