Anti-radiation damage effect of polyethylenimine as a toll-like receptor 5 targeted agonist

Hu, Zhiqiang; Xing, Yaling; Qian, Yuanyu; Chen, Xiaojuan; Tu, Jian; Ren, Lening; Wang, Kai; Chen, Zhongbin

The body weight of irradiated animals that received a low dose of PEI, or high dose of PEI, or AMI (the radiation protection positive control), were found to increase with time over a period of 30 days (Fig. 3B) . We observed a positive correlation between animal body weight and time in mice that received low dose PEI, high dose PEI and AMI over a period of 30 days, with the correlation coefficient (r) being 0.42 (P < 0.02), 0.72 (P < 0.0001) and 0.95 (P < 0.0001), respectively. In contrast, animal body weight in the irradiation control (IR mock) declined with time over a period of 30 days (Fig. 3B) , with a negative correlation (r) of -0.89 (P < 0.0001). These results demonstrate that PEI has radiation protective activity in an animal model when administered prophylactically.