Evaluation of cataract formation in fish exposed to environmental radiation at Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Recent studies apparently finding deleterious effects of radiation exposure on cataract formation in birds and voles living near Chernobyl represent a major challenge to current radiation protection regulations. This study conducted an integrated assessment of radiation exposure on cataractogenesis using the most advanced technologies available to assess the cataract status of lenses extracted from fish caught at both Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan. It was hypothesised that these novel data would reveal positive correlations between radiation dose and early indicators of cataract formation. The structure, function and optical properties of lenses were analysed from atomic to millimetre length scales. We measured the short-range order of the lens crystallin proteins using Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) at both the SPring-8 and DIAMOND synchrotrons, the profile of the graded refractive index generated by these proteins, the epithelial cell density and organisation and finally the focal length of each lens. The results showed no evidence of a difference between the focal length, the epithelial cell densities, the refractive indices, the interference functions and the short-range order of crystallin proteins (X-ray diffraction patterns) in lens from fish exposed to different radiation doses. It could be argued that animals in the natural environment which developed cataract would be more likely, for example, to suffer predation leading to survivor bias. But the cross-length scale study presented here, by evaluating small scale molecular and cellular changes in the lens (pre-cataract formation) significantly mitigates against this issue.

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Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jim T. Smith reports financial support was provided by Natural Environment Research Council. Adelaide Lerebours reports financial support was provided by Natural Environment Research Council. Jim T. Smith reports financial support was provided by Science and Technology Funding Council. Adelaide Lerebours reports financial support was provided by Science and Technology Funding Council. Roy Quinlan reports financial support was provided by EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Euratom. Alexia Kalligeraki reports financial support was provided by National Eye Research Foundation. Roy Quinlan reports financial support was provided by Fight for Sight. Roy Quinlan reports was provided by Leverhulme Trust. John Girkin, Laura Young reports financial support was provided by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Jim T. Smith reports a relationship with The Chernobyl Spirit Community Interest Company that includes: board membership and equity or stocks.