Computational Dosimetry for Electron Microbeams: Monte-Carlo Track Simulation with Confocal Microscopy

Both in vitro and in vivo experiments show that cells that do not receive energy directly from the radiation field (bystanders) respond to radiation exposure. This effect is most easily demonstrated with radiation fields composed of particles with high linear energy transfer (LET) that traverse only a few cells before they are stopped. Even at a moderate fluence of high-LET radiation only a small fraction of cells in the irradiated population are hit; hence, many bystanders are present. Low-LET radiation tends to generate a homogeneous distribution of dose at the cellular level so that identifying bystanders is much more difficult than in experiments with the same fluence of high-LET radiation. Experiments are underway at several laboratories to characterize bystander responses induced by low-LET radiation. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, experiments of this type are being carried out with an electron microbeam. A cell selected to receive energy directly from the irradiation source is placed over a hole in a mask that covers an electron gun. Monte Carlo simulations by Miller et al.(1) suggest that individual mammalian cells in a confluent monolayer could be targeted for irradiation by 25 to 100 keV electrons with minimal dose leakage to their neighbors. These calculations were based on a simple model of the cellular monolayer in which cells were assumed to be cylindrically symmetric with concentric cytoplasm and nucleus. Radial profiles, the lateral extent of cytoplasm and nucleus as a function of depth into a cell, were obtained from confocal microscopy of HeLa-cell monolayers.