Detection of metastatic tumors after γ-irradiation using longitudinal molecular imaging and gene expression profiling of metastatic tumor nodules

A few recent reports have indicated that metastatic growth of several human cancer cells could be promoted by radiotherapy. C6-L cells expressing the firefly luciferase (fLuc) gene were implanted subcutaneously into the right thigh of BALB/c nu/nu mice. C6-L xenograft mice were treated locally with 50-Gy γ-irradiation (γ-IR) in five 10-Gy fractions. Metastatic tumors were evaluated after γ-IR by imaging techniques. Total RNA from non-irradiated primary tumor (NRPT), γ-irradiated primary tumor (RPT), and three metastatic lung nodule was isolated and analyzed by microarray. Metastatic lung nodules were detected by BLI and PET/CT after 6–9 weeks of γ-IR in 6 (17.1%) of the 35 mice. The images clearly demonstrated high [(18)F]FLT and [(18)F]FDG uptake into metastatic lung nodules. Whole mRNA expression patterns were analyzed by microarray to elucidate the changes among NRPT, RPT and metastatic lung nodules after γ-IR. In particular, expression changes in the cancer stem cell markers were highly significant in RPT. We observed the metastatic tumors after γ-IR in a tumor-bearing animal model using molecular imaging methods and analyzed the gene expression profile to elucidate genetic changes after γ-IR.