John E. Biaglow

TL;DR: In this paper, a hypothesis that glutathione (GSHi) may protect against radiation damage in four ways, as shown in Figure 1, was proposed, based on this model, and used the GSH-synthesis inhibitor L-buthionine sulfoximine (LBSO) to determine its importance in radiation response.

TL;DR: The results support earlier studies showing that free radical-mediated events play a role in radiation and chemically induced transformation and suggest that selenium confers protection in part by inducing or activating cellular free-radical scavenging systems and by enhancing peroxide breakdown while vitamin E appears to confer its protection by an alternate complementary mechanism.

TL;DR: The relevancy of the present work to the proposed use of thiol depletion in vivo to enhance the radiation or chemotherapeutic response of tumor tissue lies with the following considerations.

TL;DR: The results indicate (a) that GSH plays a significant role in aerobic radiation response but is not a principal factor in o.e.r-reduction, and (b) that reduction of the o.r. by DEM is not due primarily to GSH-removal.

TL;DR: There is considerable room for maneuver in the time sequence of administering the drug and delivering the radiation dose as these potent and useful sensitizers begin to be used in the human.