Recent studies suggest that mangiferin aglycone (norathyriol) has great potential as a novel radioprotector without any known toxic side effects. In this study, we assessed the protective effects of mangiferin aglycone against radiation-induced injuries on normal human intestinal epithelial cells (HIECs), while using mangiferin as a reference compound. The in vitro experiments showed that pretreatment of either mangiferin aglycone or mangiferin could inhibit cytotoxic effects of ionizing irradiation (IR) on HIECs. Cellular changes were estimated by measuring cell viability, clonogenic surviving rate, and apoptotic rate. Compared to mangiferin, we found mangiferin aglycone had greater radioprotective effects of mangiferin aglycone on HIECs. It has been demonstrated that the cytotoxicity of ionizing radiation relates to its capacity to induce DNA damage. In view of this, we monitored DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) using γH2AX foci formation to test whether mangiferin aglycone and mangiferin could modulate genotoxic effects of radiation. It shows that mangiferin aglycone could eliminate 46.8% of the total DSBs of the cells exposed to 2 Gy IR, which is significantly better than mangiferin. Complementing earlier results from our group, it appears possible to conclude that mangiferin aglycone presents potential useful effects on IR-induced damage and may be a better radioprotective agent than mangiferin therapeutically.
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