Thorium promotes lung, liver and kidney damage in BALB/c mouse via alterations in antioxidant systems

Thorium (Th-232), long lived (14.05 billion years) most stable thorium isotope, is thrice naturally abundant than uranium. Th-232 occurs as rocky deposits and black monazite sands on the earth's crust geographically distributed in coastal South India and other places globally. Monazite sand comprises of cerium and large quantities of radioactive thorium. The environmental hazard lies in monazite rich area being termed as High Background Radiation Area (HBRA). In this study, we mimicked the HBRA under controlled chamber conditions using thorium oxalate as a thorium source for BALB/c mice exposure. Furthermore, sequential radio-disintegration of (232) Th leads to thoron (Rn-220), the noble gas and other daughter products/progeny predominantly via alpha decay/emissions. Such progeny tend to attach to aerosol and dust particles having potential inhalation hazard followed by alpha emissions and damages that we evaluated in mouse lung tissues post thoron inhalation. Secondly, along with the radio disintegration and alpha emission, high energy gamma is also generated that can travel to various distant organs through the systemic circulation, as significant findings of our study as damages to the liver and kidney. The mechanistic findings include the damages to the hematological, immunological and cellular antioxidant systems along with activation of canonical NF-kappa beta pathway via double stranded DNA damage.

Automated summary

This study simulated exposure of BALB/c mice in High Background Radiation Area and found that radio disintegration led to inhalation hazard and damages to distant organs like liver and kidney, along with causing damages to multiple systems.