Fig. 5.

P53-target genes are induced more strongly in control cells than in Chernobyl bank vole fibroblasts. RNA was collected from untreated and etoposide-treated (20 μM) cells 48 and 72 h after the drug treatment. CDNA was prepared and quantitative-PCR was run with gene specific primers, and transcript levels were standardized to beta-actin transcript. Results are shown as a fold increase from untreated samples for a.) p21, b.) Gadd45α, c.) Bax, d.) Puma, and e.) Mdm2. The results are from three separate experiments using the eight Chernobyl (N = 24) and eight control cell lines (N = 24), variation is shown by standard deviation, and statistical analysis was done with Student’s t-test (** = p ≤ 0.01, *** = p ≤ 0.001)