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About the Authors:
Mary L. Lan
Contributed equally to this work with: Mary L. Lan, Munjal M. Acharya
Current address: Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, United States of America
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Munjal M. Acharya
Contributed equally to this work with: Mary L. Lan, Munjal M. Acharya
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Katherine K. Tran
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Jessica Bahari-Kashani
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Neal H. Patel
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Jan Strnadel
Affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America
Erich Giedzinski
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Charles L. Limoli
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America
Introduction
The promise of regenerative medicine has stimulated significant interest in the basic science and clinical application of stem cells. While pluripotent and multipotent stem cells may be used to treat a range of diseases and degenerative disorders, significant work remains to understand their response to a variety of insults within the compromised tissue bed. For cancer patients undergoing radiation or chemotherapy, endogenous stem cells are subjected to harmful agents that are capable of depleting stem cell pools and causing acute and chronic changes in the tissue microenvironment [1], [2]. The initiation of an acute and chronic oxidative stress is one such change caused by irradiation. Alterations in redox homeostasis impact survival, proliferation and cell fate and have a significant impact on the capability of specific tissues to withstand injury [3]. Indeed much of the normal tissue tolerances to irradiation depend on the turnover kinetics of stem cell pools that impact the latency of adverse sequelae. Secondary processes, such as oxidative stress and inflammation that accompany irradiation have a significant impact on the dynamic remodeling of the tissue bed as it adapts to injury [4], [5]. While these...