Proton irradiation of cancer cells, endothelial cells and macrophages
In collaboration with Prof. S. Lucas and Dr A-H Heuskin
Radiotherapy is currently used in more than 60% of cancer treatments. However, its efficacy is often limited by cancer cell intrinsic resistance as well as by toxicity in surrounding healthy tissues. Hadrontherapy, which uses particles instead of photons as in conventional radiotherapy, allows to overcome these limitations. Moreover, a tumor is not only composed of cancer cells but it also contains new blood vessels and numerous immune cells including TAMs (tumor associated macrophages) which modulate the response of cancer cells to various therapies, including radiotherapy. The objective of this work is to better understand the reciprocal dialogue between cancer cells on one hand and endothelial cells or TAM on the other hand, which influences the tumor response to radiotherapy. These studies are performed comparatively for classical radiotherapy and for hadrontherapy, both in vitro using co-cultures but also in vivo in murine tumor models. They aim at identifying the molecules that are involved in the dialog between these different cell types and that may be responsible for radioresistance.
Another line of research aims at identifying radiosensitisation mechanisms of non-small cell lung cancer cells and glioblastoma cells to proton irradiation using synthetic lethality targeting DNA damage repair systems.
Selected publications
- Riquier H, Abel D, Wera AC, Heuskin AC, Genard G, Lucas S, &Michiels C 2015, ‘Effects of Alpha Particle and Proton Beam Irradiation as Putative Cross-Talk between A549 Cancer Cells and the Endothelial Cells in a Co-Culture System’ Cancers (Basel), vol 7, pp. 481-502.
- Heuskin, A-C, Michiels, C & Lucas, S 2014, 'Low dose hypersensitivity following in vitro cell irradiation with charged particles: Is the mechanism the same as with X-ray radiation?' International Journal of Radiation Biology, vol 90, no. 1, pp. 81-9.
- Riquier, H, Wera, A-C, Heuskin, A-C, Feron, O, Lucas, S & Michiels, C 2013, 'Comparison of X-ray and alpha particle effects on a human cancer and endothelial cells: Survival curves and gene expression profiles' Radiotherapy and Oncology, vol 106, no. 3, pp. 397-403.
- Heuskin, A-C, Wera, A-C, Riquier, H, Michiels, C & Lucas, S 2013, 'Low-dose hypersensitivity and bystander effect are not mutually exclusive in a549 lung carcinoma cells after irradiation with charged particles' Radiation Research, vol 180, no. 5, pp. 491-498.
- Wera, A-C, Heuskin, A-C, Riquier, H, Michiels, C & Lucas, S 2013, 'Low-LET proton irradiation of A549 non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma cells: dose response and RBE determination' Radiation Research, vol 179, no. 3, pp. 273-281.
- Heuskin, A-C, Michiels, C & Lucas, S 2013, 'Toward computer simulation of high-LET in vitro survival curves' Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol 58, no. 18, pp. 6495-6510.
- Wera, A-C, Borlon, C, Nuttens, VE, Lucas, S, Riquier, H, Michiels, C & Feron, O 2012, 'Comparison of the clonogenic survival of A549 non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma cells after irradiation with low-dose-rate beta particles and high-dose-rate X-rays' International Journal of Radiation Biology, vol 88, no. 3, pp. 253-257.
- Wera, A-C, Heuskin, A-C, Riquier, H, Michiels, C & Lucas, S 2011, 'In vitro irradiation station for broad beam radiobiological experiments' Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, vol 269, no. 24, pp. 3120-3124.
- Heuskin, A-C, Wera, A-C, Riquier, H, Michiels, C, Bulgheroni, A, Jastrzab, M, Caccia, M & Lucas, S 2011, 'On the comparison of three methods of assessing beam quality for broad beam in vitro cell irradiation' Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, vol 269, no. 24, pp. 3132-3136.