Oral feeding with Arachidonic Acid (AA) and Docosahexanoic Acid (DHA) help in better recovery of haematopoiesis in sub-lethally irradiated mice

Haematopoiesis is severely hampered after exposure to ionizing radiations. Role of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) during embryonic development as well as during various physiological processes is well established. However, few studies on their effect on haematopoiesis are reported. Hence, we studied the effect of oral administration of PUFAs-AA/DHA on haematopoiesis of sub-lethally irradiated mice. To determine the optimal dose for haematopoiesis, non-irradiated healthy mice were orally fed with different doses of AA/DHA daily for ten days. Additionally, mice were sub lethally irradiated and kept for ten days on normal diet. Further, sub-lethally irradiated mice were orally fed with optimal dose of AA/DHA for ten days. Mice from the experiments were sacrificed after ten days and their bone marrow cells were harvested and analyzed for their total nucleated cell (TNC) count, side population (SP) and lin-Sca-1+c-kit+(LSK) phenotype. Peripheral blood collected from this set of mice was subjected to hemogram analysis. Daily dose of 8 mg AA/DHA for ten days was assessed as optimal for enhancing BM-MNCs and primitive HSCs in non-irradiated mice. Significant depletion in BM-MNCs, SP and LSK cells was observed in sub lethally irradiated mice compared to un-irradiated control mice. Feeding with DHA or AA in sub lethally irradiated mice showed significantly higher number of BM-MNCs and increased percentage of SP and LSK cells, suggesting that DHA and AA resulted in better recovery of hematopoietically compromised mice. The data indicated that DHA or AA may serve as useful dietary supplements in patients exposed to irradiation.