This week in nuclear news
I am struggling to keep up with news of the various machinations going on globally, in
Christina Macpherson’s websites & blogs
regard to nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
There’s the Iran – West talks – many points of view on this. I like Jimmy Carter’s idea – don’t bomb Iran.
There’s – most worrying – this global phenomenon – this spectrum of pressure, harassment, discrimination, ill-treatment, imprisonment, murder – of independent journalists and whistleblowers. Anti nuclear journalists are a frequent target, for example Mari Takenouchi , in Japan.
As existing nuclear reactors age, and need expensive safety upgrades, and new nuclear reactors can’t get going, much angst is going on . in USA, UK, and especially Japan. Nuclear corporations and their obedient governments are in a bit of a panic about this. USA – always the leader, is panicking most about what to do with nuclear wastes.
But – there’s a brighter side to all this, for the nuclear industry. Cleaning up radioactive trash, or “decommissioning’ (that’s a nicer word) is becoming a bonanza for the nuclear corporations. Westinghouse has just dumped its plans for making Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs – they left out the word ‘nuclear’ because it put people off even more than people were off already) Westinghouse is instead going to do decommissioning. Other nuclear companies are turning in that direction, too.
India soon to have elections. Despite pro nuclear major parties, there’s a growing young Aam Aadmi Party uniting in opposition to nuclear power
Renewable energy forges ahead, world-wide, – especially in China
Canada narrows list of possible locations for nuclear waste facility
Some were also drawn by the fact that for taking part in the selection process, they’ll get $400,000 even if they’re not chosen, providing they advance far enough in the process and a DGR is ultimately approved.
7 of 22 municipalities dropped from list of potential sites
By Rick MacInnes-Rae, CBC News Posted: Apr 09, 2014
(Interactive map showing locations of possible nuclear dump sites on link)
Canada is a step closer to picking a place to store spent nuclear fuel underground for the next 100,000 years, a project that’s backfired on some of the world’s other nuclear economies.
Despite the stigma of radioactivity, 22 Canadian municipalities expressed interest in hosting such a facility. Four have now been moved up the list for further evaluation, while seven have been rejected as not suitable. The other 11 are still in the initial assessment phase.
Final approval could take another couple of decades, but if a site is found and approval given to build a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR), the project will generate thousands of jobs, some lasting generations.
Billions would be spent constructing a vast warehouse over 500 metres underground to contain some of the most radioactive waste in the world.
Deadly byproduct
Nuclear energy has helped meet Canada’s electricity needs for more than 40 years, but a deadly byproduct has been steadily building up as a result.
There’s a growing inventory of spent uranium pellets. The radioactive pellets are stored inside long silver tubes bundled together like 24-kilogram logs.
Spent uranium pellets from nuclear reactors are stored inside long silver tubes that are bundled together like 24-kilogram logs.
Heading the search for a secure place to store those tubes is the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation (NWMO), funded by Canada’s four nuclear agencies, which describes the situation this way: “If Canada’s entire current inventory of just over two million used fuel bundles could be stacked end-to-end, like cordwood, it would fit into six NHL-sized hockey rinks from the ice surface to the top of the boards.”
At present, spent fuel is stored at seven different sites across Canada, including at the reactors it once powered. But that’s not a long-term solution, because in time those reactors will be decommissioned and dismantled.
In its quest for a site, the NWMO took the novel step of asking Canadian communities if they’d think about hosting the highly-radioactive payload.
“Well, we didn’t know what to expect” said Jo-Ann Facella, director of social research and dialogue at the NWMO.
“We put out the plan that Canadians had come forward with and the government had selected as Canada’s plan. And an important part of that plan, it emerged from Canadians, is that these facilities only be implemented in a willing host.”
What also came back were expressions of interest from 22 different municipalities, tempted in part by the promise of employment if they’re chosen. Some were also drawn by the fact that for taking part in the selection process, they’ll get $400,000 even if they’re not chosen, providing they advance far enough in the process and a DGR is ultimately approved.
Danger of Fukushima radiation kept secret, as US navymen were exposed
US service members claim they were misled about Fukushima radiation dangers RT, 9 April 14, US service members who took part in cleanup efforts after the Fukushima nuclear disaster have since been diagnosed with ailments like cancer. Now, in a class action lawsuit, they allege they were misled about radiation risks, RT’s Ameera David reports.
Dozens of US sailors and marines who provided humanitarian assistance following the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan in March 2011 have been diagnosed with illnesses such as leukemia, testicular cancer, and thyroid disease.
The service members – many of whom were aboard the aircraft carrier USS Reagan – are now part of a class action lawsuit against the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). They allege TEPCO provided false information to the US Navy about the extent of radioactive contamination in the surrounding air and water.
While TEPCO is the main focus of suspicions, the service members are also pressing the US Navy to reveal whether or not it knew about the radiation, particularly considering the kind of equipment aboard the USS Reagan, a nuclear-powered ship.
There are “lots of radiation detectors both fixed in position to monitor the radioactivity from the reactor itself and also lots of Geiger counters,” said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project with Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear advocacy organization.
“So we’re quite sure that the Navy was aware of the radioactivity but that was not being communicated to the sailors that were in harm’s way.”
The Navy denies the allegations, saying that the Pentagon and an independent group analyzed available radioactive data of that period.
“The worst-case radiation exposure for a crew member on [the] USS Ronald Reagan is less than 25 percent of the annual radiation exposure to a member of the US public from natural sources of background radiation, such as the sun, rocks, and soil,” a spokesperson for the Navy told RT.
But the Navy’s claims do not make sense, says Michael Sebourn, a former US Navy officer who was part of the Fukushima cleanup. In fact, he was responsible for measuring radiation exposure to equipment and US personnel.
“That was my job,” Sebourn told RT. “So to say that it is normal day-to-day radiation is 100-percent bogus……http://rt.com/usa/navy-fukushima-nuclear-radiation-504/
The historic peace ship, the Golden Rule, will sail again
World War II U.S. naval commander. Appalled by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, he became a Quaker and, in 1955, working with the American Friends Service Committee, sought to deliver a petition against nuclear testing to the White House. Rebuffed by government officials, Bigelow and other pacifists organized a small group, Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, to employ nonviolent resistance in the struggle against the Bomb. After the U.S. government announced plans to set off nuclear bomb blasts near Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands―an island chain governed by the United States as a “trust territory” for the native people―Bigelow and other pacifists decided to sail a 30-foot protest vessel, the Golden Rule, into the nuclear testing zone. Explaining their decision, Bigelow declared: “All nuclear explosions are monstrous, evil, unworthy of human beings.”Europe can have an integrated, competitive, energy market , with renewables
Only renewables can create an integrated, competitive EU energy market http://www.euractiv.com/sections/energy/only-renewables-can-create-integrated-competitive-eu-energy-market-301456 , 9 April 14 The European Commission’s state aid decision on 9 April has put renewable energy support schemes in the firing line, and threatened attainment of the 2030 climate and energy goals, even though renewable energy has created – and not obstructed – competition, writes Martin Schoenberg.
Martin Schoenberg is head of policy atClimate Change Capital, an environmental asset manager and advisor.
Is there really a contradiction between national-level state intervention to promote renewable energy and the internal market for energy? Depends on how you look at it. I would argue there is not. Continue reading
If India’s govt changes its “no first use” nuclear weapons policy, – it’s a mockery of disarmament policy
Former Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is widely expected to win the elections advocates changing India’s policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons
Can a nuclear-weapons state champion disarmament? Japan Times BY RAMESH THAKUR 9 April 14 Forty-four years after the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force, the world still finds itself perilously close to the edge of the nuclear cliff. The cliff is perhaps not quite as steep as it was in the 1980s, when there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons compared to today’s 17,000, but going over it would be fatal for planet Earth.
Authoritative road maps exist to walk us back to the relative safety of a denuclearized world, but a perverse mixture of hubris and arrogance on the part of the nine nuclear-armed states (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) exposes us to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster.
For nuclear peace to hold, deterrence and fail-safe mechanisms must work every single time. For nuclear Armageddon to break out, deterrence or fail-safe mechanisms need to break down only once. This is not a comforting equation.
Deterrence stability depends on rational decision-makers being always in office on all sides: a dubious and not very reassuring precondition. It depends equally critically on there being no rogue launch, human error or system malfunction: an impossibly high bar.
According to one U.S. study reported by Eric Schlosser last year, more than 1,200 nuclear weapons were involved in significant incidents from 1950-68 because of security breaches, lost weapons, failed safety mechanism or accidents resulting from weapons being dropped or crushed in lifts………
an increasing number of voices are demanding that the sole function of nuclear weapons, as long as they exist, should be to deter a nuclear attack, all the nuclear armed states should join together to establish a global no-first-use norm.
It is simplistic to dismiss “no first use” as merely declaratory, easily ignored in wartime. A universal no-first-use policy by all nine nuclear-armed states would have considerable practical import with flow-on requirements for nuclear force posture and deployment — for example, de-alerting (taking warheads off hair-trigger alert), de-mating (separating warheads from delivery systems) and de-targeting. This strengthened norm of nonuse would then lay the groundwork for further gradual reductions in the number of nuclear warheads held by the various nuclear armed states and their eventual elimination through a nuclear weapons convention.
Ramesh Thakur is director of the Center for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Australian National University, and coeditor of the recently published four-volume reference set “Nuclear Politics” (2014).
No point in bombing Iran, even if they get a nuclear weapon
Jimmy Carter: U.S. Shouldn’t Bomb Iran Even If They Get a Nuclear Weapon MediaIte, by Matt Wilstein , April 9th Former President Jimmy Carter joined MSNBC’sChris Matthews for an interview on Hardball Wednesday and made some news by saying he does not think the United States should bomb Iran even if they were to succeed in building an operational nuclear weapon. This statement differs not only from recent comments made by former Vice President Dick Cheney but also from the stated position of President Barack Obama.
“I never have felt that Israel had a capability militarily to go 1,200 miles or more and bomb Iran effectively and then return back to Israel,” said of Cheney’s suggestion that Israel could attack Iran unilaterally. “The only country on earth that has that capability would be the United States, and i don’t believe it’s appropriate for the United States to bomb Iran over this issue.”
When Matthews asked him if that position would apply even if Iran was in possession of a nuclear weapon, Carter replied, “Well, you know, if they got one nuclear weapon, Israel has, what, 300 or more, nobody knows exactly how many. And I know that every Iranian realizes that if they should try to use a nuclear weapon, Iran would be wiped off the face of the earth, which I think is so ridiculous, a self-destructive decision that they would not do it.”…….http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jimmy-carter-u-s-shouldnt-bomb-iran-even-if-they-get-a-nuclear-weapon/
South Dakota’s 270 abandoned, open-pit uranium mines.
South Dakota groups urging cleanup of uranium mines http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2014/04/09/south-dakota-groups-urging-cleanup-uranium-mines/7499621/ Associated Press, @ap7 April 9, 2014 RAPID CITY — Some environmental groups plan to use Earth Day to call attention to old uranium mines in South Dakota and elsewhere.
Defenders of the Black Hills and Clean Up The Mines say they’ll announce a nationwide campaign to clean up all abandoned uranium mines in the United States.
The event is scheduled for April 22 near Hermosa.
The groups say South Dakota has at least 270 abandoned, open-pit uranium mines.
A solar energy powerhouse is developing fast: it’s Chile
Chile An Emerging Solar PV Powerhouse http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4257 Chile installed 150MW of solar panels in the first quarter of this year and has a further 380MW of PV under construction.
According to GTM Research’s Latin America PV Playbook, Q2 2014; the 150MW tally is triple the amount that any Latin American country has ever installed in a single quarter.
A major contributor to the impressive first quarter total was SunEdison’s 50.7 MW San Andres solar farm; the largest merchant solar plant in Latin America to date. SunEdison recently announced it has sold a majority stake in the facility to a group of investors.
GTM Research forecasts Chile will install 244 megawatts of PV this year; some of which support the nation’s energy-hungry mining industry. Last year, Chile’s renewable energy capacity jumped 40 percent to just over one gigawatt. The nation’s renewable energy target demands utilities source 20 percent of their power from renewable sources – excluding hydro – by 2025.
GTM Research considers Latin America to be the “global frontier” for unsubsidized solar markets.
“With high insolation levels and growing demand, it is positioned to be one of the most attractive regions on the planet for solar development.”
Chile has a population of more than 17 million. According to Wikipedia, its electricity generation sector relies mainly on hydro-electric power (33% of installed capacity as of May, 2012), oil (13%), gas (30%) and coal (20%). Much of its fossil fuel is imported.
The nation’s newly elected president, Michelle Bachelet, this week announced a proposed carbon tax. Under the proposal, thermal power plants with a generation capacity of at least 50 megawatts will pay a tax of $5 per metric tonne of carbon dioxide emitted. The carbon tax would be the first to be implemented in South America.
Business community has best hope of promoting action on climate change and renewable energy
Can Business Break Impasse on Climate Action? http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2014/apr/09/can-business-break-impasse-on-climate-action/
bmagill (AP) April 9, 2014 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urged immediate action on adapting to human-caused climate change in the second part of its fifth assessment report, released in March. But it may be that governments and the media are poorly equipped to deliver that dire message to the public.
That was the consensus among experts speaking about the evolution of the public debate over climate change and clean energy at Bloomberg’s Future of Energy Summit in New York City.
Andy Hoffman, director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, said that climate change and renewable energy are caught in a cultural schism in which both, regardless of the science, are seen as products of radical environmentalists and big government.
“What we find is that when people start to discuss these issues, they’re questioning your motives and (trying) to find out whether you’re a member of their tribe,” he said.
Of all the institutions that deliver the message to the public about how climate change will affect them, the media, the government and energy companies are the least trusted, according to surveys conducted by public relations firm Edelman, Jessica Lennard, the firm’s director of energy public affairs said.
The public has a great trust in the business community to deliver that message, however, she said. Continue reading
Renewable energy future in Poland, with new law
Poland approves renewable energy bill, Climate Spectator Reuters 9 Apr, Poland’s government approved a long-awaited draft law on Tuesday that lays out new long-term subsidies for renewable energy, aiming to cut costs to consumers as well as help the coal-reliant country meet EU climate targets……http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2014/4/9/policy-politics/poland-approves-renewable-energy-bill
Tepco NOT to analyze Plutonium or Uranium in bypass water before discharging to the Pacific
The program is expected to reduce the amount of water flowing into the building basements by a maximum of 100 tons from the current amount of around 400 tons a day to 300 tons a day, TEPCO said.
Image and quote source ; http://peakoil.com/enviroment/japan-starts-cleaning-radioactive-groundwater-at-fukushima-before-dumping-into-ocean/comment-page-1
Other information ; Fig. 1-1-27 Land Subsidence Across the Nation in FY 1991
Posted by Mochizuki on April 9th, 2014
Tepco is not going to analyze / put the safety limit on α nuclides including Plutonium-238/239/240 and Uranium-235/238 in bypassed groundwater to discharge.
They are planning to discharge the pumped groundwater to the Pacific from this coming June. They are supposed to analyze the contamination though they won’t filter the pumped water.
However from their answer to the local fishery cooperative, α nuclides will be excluded from the checking list. No matter how contaminated by Plutonium, Uranium, or / and Americium the water is, the pumped water will be discharged limitlessly.
α nuclides, which are the highest risk for the health and environment, are hardly checked in fishery products either. Potential Plutonium or Uranium of Fukushima plant will be discharged to the Pacific without any checking, and it can be transferred to the body of the fishery products consumers with no control.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/news/2014/images/140404a.pdf
Iori MochizukiDownplay it in the beginning, and quietly add more information so nobody notices it. All for not letting the cattle escape. This is their strategy.
3/30から5/5まで、おれ氏はキプロスを調査しておりもす。
(キプロス調査の詳しいところ)
オ ラソダ調査の時に何度も弁護士の口から出てきた国、キプロスで起業→オラソダで支店開設をすれば同じ要領で世界中の国でビザが(σ・∀・)σｹﾞｯﾂ!! 出来るのか。理論上では可能ですが、実際に出来るのかは誰か暇な奴が確かめてみないといけません。ということで、世界で幼稚園児の次に暇な男、おれ氏が やってきます。
調査費は自腹で、見積もりを出す以前にキプロスに飛び込んでしまいましたが、未開の地を開拓するサソタ・オレオ号にみなさんのオレオを投資して頂けると嬉 しいです。費用は全部で切りのいいところで222.5オレオになる見込みですたい。1オレオ（10$、オレオ数はQuantityで変更可能）〜から、顔 本、たそぶらーの専用ページへアクセス出来もふ！
現在の総オレオ/目標オレオ：64/222.5
_____
Français :
Tepco n’analysera PAS le Plutonium ou l’Uranium des eaux de la dérivation avant leur décharge dans le Pacifique
Even low-level radioactivity is damaging, scientists conclude
“And the truth is, if we see effects at these low levels, then we have to be thinking differently about how we develop regulations for exposures, and especially intentional exposures to populations, like the emissions from nuclear power plants, medical procedures, and even some x-ray machines at airports.”
“With the levels of contamination that we have seen as a result of nuclear power plants, especially in the past, and even as a result of Chernobyl and Fukushima and related accidents, there’s an attempt in the industry to downplay the doses that the populations are getting, because maybe it’s only one or two times beyond what is thought to be the natural background level,”
Date November 13, 2012
Source:University of South Carolina
Summary:Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded, reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years. Variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121113134224.htm
Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.
The review is a meta-analysis of studies of locations around the globe that have very high natural background radiation as a result of the minerals in the ground there, including Ramsar, Iran, Mombasa, Kenya, Lodeve, France, and Yangjiang, China. These, and a few other geographic locations with natural background radiation that greatly exceeds normal amounts, have long drawn scientists intent on understanding the effects of radiation on life. Individual studies by themselves, however, have often only shown small effects on small populations from which conclusive statistical conclusions were difficult to draw.
“When you’re looking at such small effect sizes, the size of the population you need to study is huge,” said co-author Timothy Mousseau, a biologist in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina. “Pooling across multiple studies, in multiple areas, and in a rigorous statistical manner provides a tool to really get at these questions about low-level radiation.”
Continue reading
long-term cardiac effects of low doses of ionizing radiation – Report 2013
Abstract from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3579799/
Aim
Investigating long-term cardiac effects of low doses of ionizing radiation is highly relevant in the context of interventional cardiology and radiotherapy. Epidemiological data report that low doses of irradiation to the heart can result in significant increase in the cardiovascular mortality by yet unknown mechanisms. In addition co-morbidity factor such as hypertension or/and atherosclerosis can enhance cardiac complications. Therefore, we explored the mechanisms that lead to long-term cardiac remodelling and investigated the interaction of radiation-induced damage to heart and cardiovascular systems with atherosclerosis, using wild-type and ApoE-deficient mice.
Methods and Results
ApoE−/− and wild-type mice were locally irradiated to the heart at 0, 0.2 and 2 Gy (RX). Twenty, 40 and 60 weeks post-irradiation, echocardiography were performed and hearts were collected for cardiomyocyte isolation, histopathological analysis, study of inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis deposition. Common and strain-specific pathogenic pathways were found. Significant alteration of left ventricular function (eccentric hypertrophy) occurred in both strains of mice. Low dose irradiation (0.2 Gy) induced premature death in ApoE−/− mice (47% died at 20 weeks). Acute inflammatory infiltrate was observed in scarring areas with accumulation of M1-macrophages and secretion of IL-6. Increased expression of the fibrogenic factors (TGF-β1 and PAI-1) was measured earlier in cardiomyocytes isolated from ApoE−/− than in wt animals.
Conclusion
The present study shows that cardiac exposure to low dose of ionizing radiation induce significant physiological, histopathological, cellular and molecular alterations in irradiated heart with mild functional impairment. Atherosclerotic predisposition precipitated cardiac damage induced by low doses with an early pro-inflammatory polarization of macrophages.
Introduction
Epidemiological reports clearly show that cardiac exposure to high doses of ionizing radiation after radiotherapy increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in cancer patients (for instance, in left sided breast cancer patients the heart dose can range from 3 to 17 Gy with an increased risk of cardiovascular death equal to 44%) [1]; [2]; [3]; [4]. Alteration of cardiac function with a decrease in ejection fraction (EF) suggestive of heart failure was also reported in patients who developed long-term radiation-induced cardiac toxicity either after exposure to intermediate dose of ionizing radiation to the heart (<3 Gy) [3] and/or chemo-induced heart toxicity after exposure to anthracyclines [5]. Although the potential risk of late cardiac disease after exposure to low radiation doses was raised a long time ago by the analysis of mortality from cancer and non-malignant diseases among Japanese A-bomb survivors [6]; [7], controversies are still ongoing and biological evidence remains scarce. Mortality from myocardial infarction more than 40 years after radiation exposure was significantly increased in victims who had received an acute total body dose of 1 to 2 Gy. Other data are accruing that both environmental and occupational low-dose exposure may lead to increased risk of cardiac disorders [8]. However, studies conducted in Canadian, British and German nuclear workers showed no evidence of enhanced cardiovascular disease (CVD) [9]; [10]; [11]. The dose threshold and latency time for CVD development after low dose exposure is unknown as well as the pathogenic features and mechanisms of the disease. The enormous latency time (≥15 years) required before occurrence of any measurable symptoms [3];[12] makes the disease difficult to study in humans and co-morbidity factors inevitably influence final outcome.
The establishment of an experimental model dedicated to study heart response to low dose of ionizing radiation constituted the first part of the present study. As cardiovascular co-morbidity such as atherosclerosis is present in >20% of cancer patients [13], we investigated cardiac response in pro-atherogenic ApoE-deficient mice [14]. Finally, several questions were addressed: i) the impact of low doses of ionizing radiation on cardiac function, ii) the time course of the pathogenic development if any, iii) and potential structural and cellular alterations associated. Functional studies along with structural, cellular and molecular characterization allowed us to document for the first time that low doses of irradiation induce cardiac lesions and remodelling that are amplified in a pro-atherogenic genetic background with mild but measurable functional impact. The development of post-irradiation cardiac pathology is largely amplified by aging factors and structural alterations consistent with ongoing scarring and fibrogenic processes. The pathological picture was enhanced and more precocious in ApoE−/− as compared with wild-type (wt). However, in both strains, cardiac fibrosis was associated with inflammatory infiltration that was further characterized.
Today the role of macrophages in cardiac remodelling is well recognized and M1 versus M2-polarization is thought to drive the balance between exacerbation of tissue damage (M1) or protection/recovery but possibly fibrogenesis (M2) [15]; [16]; [17]; [18]. Interestingly, a role for macrophages after total body exposure to low dose irradiation has been suggested [19] but macrophage polarization has never been characterized. These long-term changes in the micro-environment and persistent inflammation might alter the tissue and contribute to long-term defects and to chronic release of fibrogenic growth factors [17]. Amongst them a key role for TGF-β1 signalling has been shown, by us and others, in the constitution of radiation-induced fibrotic tissue [20]; [21]; [22]; [23]; [24]. TGF-β1 is also an important mediator of cardiac remodelling and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy [25], its contribution after exposure to low dose of ionizing radiation has been shown in mammary epithelium [26], but has not been previously investigated in the heart. Given the cellular features observed in irradiated hearts at low dose, we hypothesized that both precocious macrophage polarization and earlier TGF- β1 activation could provide the molecular basis for ApoE−/− enhanced sensitivity to low dose of ionizing radiation.
Materials and Methods
Animals and irradiation procedures
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