Acqua Pesante (D2o) Irradiata: Dal Reattore Nucleare Alla Cellula

Summary: Researches curried out to justify the strong pH variability of D2O utilized to overloading deuterium in palladium and to investigate the reason for the disappearance of mercury dispersed in the electrolytic solution to patch the microslit of palladium wires, leaded us to a discovery of a new bacterial species, we named: Ralstonia detusculanense e Stenotrophomonas detusculanens; they turned out to be responsible of the noticed anomalies. Therefore, to remove these inconveniences, we sterilized the D2O using high doses of gamma radiation. Hall this was a solid justification to start an experimental study to compare the biological effects of D2O not irradiated and irradiated at high doses. This research clearly demonstrated a greater increase of the biological effects due to irradiated with respect to the non irradiated heavy water. This greater effectiveness was evaluated by means of the cell survival reduction and of the apoptosis increase. At the same time the experiment indicates that normal irradiated water loss in time hits efficacy in a greater extent with respect to the heavy irradiated water. Looking at the experimental results the question comes out on what mechanisms could be responsible of the cellular lethal damages at low concentrations of heavy irradiated water. We are pointing out our attention on deuterated free radicals and on the possibility of their implications in some biological structures or processes. A further aspect that came out was the persistence in the long run of the high cytotoxic efficacy of irradiated D2O. This 'radiomimetic' behaviour of irradiated D2O is justifying the experimental extension to the molecular compounds produced by irradiation (ROS or/and other molecules); we intend reach this aim through chemical-physical methodologies and, at the same time, we hope also to obtain useful indications on cellular interaction mechanisms involved in the specific field of cancer cell lethality.