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Division of Cellular and Immune-radiobiology

Staff

• dr. Katalin LUMNICZKY, PhD (Ms) - Head of Division
• dr. Andrea BALOGH, PhD (Ms) - researcher
• Anett BENEDEK (Ms) - researcher
• Enikő Noémi BOGDÁNDI (Ms) - researcher
• dr. Tünde SZATMÁRI, PhD (Ms) - researcher
• Eszter Persa, Balázsné - researcher
• Erzsébet FEKETE (Ms) - assaistant
• Éva VÁLICZKÓ (Ms) - researcher

Main activities

A. Research activity

The division has the following research priorities:

Research topics

1. The biological effects of low-dose (below 100 mGy) radiation.

The importance of the topic: The number of diagnostic medical examinations (CT, PET, PET-CT, and angiography) which imply low-dose radiation exposure, increased rapidly during the last decade and this is also a future tendency. These procedures affect the population on a wide scale. The doses received during a single intervention are very low, and they will not result in health impairment either on short or on long term. However, the individual might be subjected to these procedures several times during its lifetime. It is difficult, if even possible, to follow up the total effective dose of these examinations and to estimate the long term consequences and their potential impact on health risk. The cumulative effects of these low doses might modify the stochastic effects of ionizing radiation that is the incidence of malignant tumors and the frequency of congenital or inherited genetic disorders.

Our division studies the effect of low-dose radiation on:

• Immune system
• Cerebral blood flow

Low-dose radiation induced effects on the immune system. We investigate total-body irradiation induced quantitative and functional changes on the different cell types of the immune system. We focus on two cell types: dendritic cells, which play a key role in antigen presentation, and regulatory T cells which are the main cell types with immune suppressing function.

The research is supported by the following grants: Hungarian ETT and European Union FP6-036465/2006 (NOTE). The work is done in collaboration with the Division of Molecular and Tumor Radiobiology.

Low-dose radiation induced effects on the cerebral blood flow.This research work starts in the second part of 2011 in the frame of an EU-FP7 project. The focuses on the study of low-dose radiation effects on the cerebral blood flow, inflammation, hypoxia and mitochondrial function in mouse and rat. The work is done in collaboration with the Division of Molecular and Tumor Biology.

The aim is to enhance the radiosensitivity of tumors by the means of gene therapy. Certain chemotherapeutic drugs were shown to improve the efficiency of radiotherapy, they behave as radiosensitizers. Such a drug is gemcitabine, which is a nucleoside analog. The drug itself is inactive, it becomes active during its intracellular metabolism. This metabolic activation is mainly done by the deoxycytidine kinase, but other enzymes are also involved. Our aim is to enhance the cytotoxic and radiosensitizing effect of gemcitabine by modulating the activity of the enzymes involved in the metabolization of this drug, and by using gene therapy.

B. Teaching activity

We keep lectures at several universities on the following training courses:

• Comprehensive and modern radiation protection course organized by Semmelweis University, Budapest and NRRI
• Radiation biology course for radiotherapy specialists and candidates at Semmelweis University, Budapest
• Radiation biology course for undergraduate students at University of Pécs
• Postgradual radiation biology for radiation physicists at Budapest University of Technology and Economics

We participate in the practical training of radiation biology for radiotherapy specialist candidates.

C. Relevant publications:

1. Lumniczky K, Sáfrány G. Simultaneous isolation of both RNA and DNA from many small tissue samples. Acta Biologica Hungarica, 1997; 48: 253-257. IF: 0,688

2. Lumniczky K, Antal S, Unger E, Hídvégi EJ, Sáfrány G. Oncogenic changes in murine lymphoid tumors induced by in utero exposure to ionizing radiation. Radiat. Oncol. Invest. 1997; 5: 158-162.

3. Lumniczky K, Antal S, Unger E, Wunderlich L, Hídvégi EJ and Sáfrány G. Carcinogenic alterations in murine liver, lung and uterus tumors induced by in utero exposure to ionizing radiation. Mol. Carcinogen. 1998; 21: 100-110 IF: 2,743

4. Schmidt J, Lumniczky K, Tzschaschel BD, Guenther HL, Luz A, Riemann S, Gimbel W, Erfle V, Erben RG. Onset and dynamics of osteosclerosis in mice induced by RFB murine leukemia virus (RFB MuLV): Increase in bone mass precedes lymphomagenesis. The American Journal of Pathology 1999; 155: 557-570, IF: 6,436

5. Désaknai S, Lumniczky K, Hidvégi EJ, Hamada H, Sáfrány G. Brain tumor treatment with IL-2 and IL-12 producing autologous cancer cell vaccines. Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 2001; 495: 369-372. IF: 0,646

6. Lumniczky K, Désaknai S, Mangel L, Szende B, Hamada H, Hidvégi EJ, Sáfrány G. Local tumor irradiation augments the anti-tumor effect of cytokine producing autologous cancer cell vaccines in a murine glioma model. Cancer Gene Ther. 2002; 9: 44-52. IF: 4,187

7. Antal S, Lumniczky K, Palfalvi J, Hidvegi E, Schneider F, Safrany G. Oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in murine tumors induced by neutron- or gamma-irradiation in utero. RADIATION AND HOMEOSTASIS, INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS SERIES. 1236: 119-122. 2002

8. Désaknai S, Lumniczky K, Ésik O, Hamada H, Sáfrány G. Local tumour irradiation enhances the anti-tumour effect of a double-suicide gene therapy system in a murine glioma model. J Gene Med 2003; 5: 377-385. IF: 3,916

9. Klementis I, Lumniczky K, Kis E, Szatmári T, Antal S, Sáfrány G. The transgenerational mutagenic and carcinogenic effect of ionizing radiation. Central European Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2004; 10: 235-245.

10. K. Lumniczky and G. Sáfrány. The bystander effect of cancer gene therapy. In „Non-targeted effects of ionising radiation Proceedings of the RISC-RAD specialised training course. STUK – Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Helsinki, Finland 14 – 16 February 2005 (Ed. O. Belyakov)

11. Szatmári T*, Lumniczky K*(shared first-authorship), Désaknai S, Trajcevski S, Hídvégi EJ, Hamada H, Sáfrány G. Detailed characterization of the mouse glioma 261 tumor model for experimental glioblastoma therapy. Cancer Science 2006; 97: 546-553. IF: 3,869

12. Lumniczky K, Sáfrány G. Cancer Gene Therapy: Combination with Radiation Therapy and the Role of Bystander Cell Killing in the Anti-tumor Effect. Pathol Oncol Res 2006; 12:118-24. IF: 1,241

13. Kis E, Szatmári T, Keszei M, Farkas R, Ésik O, Lumniczky K, Falus A, Sáfrány G. Microarray analysis of radiation response genes in primary human fibroblasts. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 2006; 66:1506-14. IF: 4,463

14. Szatmári T, Huszty G, Désaknai S, Spasokoukotskaja T, Sasvári-Székely M, Staub M, Ésik O, Sáfrány G, Lumniczky K. Adenoviral vector transduction of the human deoxycytidine kinase gene enhances the cytotoxic and radiosensitizing effect of gemcitabine on experimental gliomas. Cancer Gene Ther 2008; 15: 154-64.IF: 4,187

15. Bogdándi EN, Balogh A, Felgyinszky N, Szatmári T, Persa E, Hildebrandt G, Sáfrány G, Lumniczky K. Low Dose Radiation Effects on the Immune System of Mice after Total-body Irradiation. Radiat Res 2010, 174: 480-489. IF: 3.043

16. Balogh A, Persa E, Bogdándi EN, Benedek A, Szatmári T, Sáfrány G, Lumniczky K. The Effect of Ionizing Radiation on the Radiosensitivity and Functional Integrity of Regulatory T Cells. submitted