The preventive and protective effects of aspirin on radiation-induced skin injury

Abstract

Radiation-induced skin injury (RISI) is a frequent complication of radiotherapy that can severely hinder treatment and endanger patients’ lives. Current treatments offer limited efficacy in reducing symptoms. This study explores the protective effect of aspirin (ASP) on RISI and its underlying mechanisms. As in vivo RISI models, 8 - 12-week-old C57BL/6 mice were irradiated with a single dose of 20 Gy X-rays to the skin of the right thigh, with sham-irradiated mice serving as controls. ASP was administered orally for 7 days before irradiation. Skin samples were collected on day 14 post-irradiation for single-cell RNA sequencing (sc-RNAseq). RISI severity was assessed daily using a modified RTOG/EORTC scoring system (scores ranging from 1 to 5.5). Our results showed that ASP delayed the onset of RISI and reduced its severity. The sc-RNAseq revealed an increased number of interfollicular epidermal cycling (IFE C) cells in irradiated skin, with some cells showing G2M cell cycle arrest. These IFE C cells exhibited elevated expression of stemness markers, indicating their importance in both RISI damage and subsequent repair. The ASP-treated group showed delayed skin injury onset and reduced peak severity compared to untreated controls. Furthermore, ASP appeared to promote homologous recombination repair of radiation-induced DNA damage, contributing to its protective effect. In conclusion, IFE C cells undergo G2M arrest to repair radiation-induced damage. ASP shows potential in preventing RISI, possibly through enhancing DNA repair. These findings suggest a novel therapeutic role for ASP in mitigating RISI.

Keywords

Radiation-induced skin injury / Single-cell RNA sequencing / Interfollicular epidermal cells / Aspirin / G2/M cell cycle arrest / DNA repair

Acknowledgments

None.

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no competing interests.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Zhaoming Zhou, Wei Qiao

Data curation: All authors

Formal analysis: Yong Feng

Funding acquisition: Wei Qiao

Investigation: Zhaoming Zhou

Methodology: Zhaoming Zhou

Project administration: Yong Feng

Resources: Wei Qiao

Software: Zhaoming Zhou

Supervision: Wei Qiao

Validation: Zhaoming Zhou

Visualization: Zhaoming Zhou

Writing - original draft: Zhaoming Zhou

Writing - review & editing: All authors

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study did not include human participants, human data, or human tissue. The animal experiments were carried out in accordance with ethical procedures and the protocols were approved by the Ethics Committee for Laboratory Animals of the Southern Medical University (L2019074).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data

The data used in this study will be available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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