Protection from ionizing radiation-induced genotoxicity and apoptosis in rat bone marrow cells by HESA-A: a new herbal-marine compound Maryam Hazbavi 1 & Mansoureh Zarei 1 & Roghayeh Nazaralivand 2 & Hojattollah Shahbazian 3 & Mohsen Cheki 4 Received: 18 March 2019 /Accepted: 23 July 2019 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract HESA-A is an herbal-marine compound which improves the quality of life of end-stage cancer patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the possible protective effect of HESA-A against IR-induced genotoxicity and apoptosis in rat bone marrow. Rats were given HESA-A orally at doses of 150 and 300 mg/kg body weight for seven consecutive days. On the seventh day, the rats were irradiated with 4 Gy X-rays at 1 h after the last oral administration. The micronucleus assay, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level analysis, hematological analysis and flow cytometry were used to assess radiation antagonistic potential of HESA-A. Administration of 150 and 300 mg/kg of HESA-A to irradiated rats significantly reduced the frequencies of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (MnPCEs) and micronucleated normochromatic erythrocytes (MnNCEs), and also increased PCE/(PCE + NCE) ratio in bone marrow cells. Moreover, pretreatment of irradiated rats with HESA-A (150 and 300 mg/kg) significantly decreased ROS level and apoptosis in bone marrow cells, and also increased white blood cells count in peripheral blood. For the first time in this study, it was observed that HESA-A can have protective effects against radiation- induced genotoxicity and apoptosis in bone marrow cells. Therefore, HESA-A can be considered as a candidate for future studies to reduce the side effects induced by radiotherapy in cancer patients. Keywords Ionizing radiation . Bone marrow cells . Radioprotector . HESA-A . Genotoxicity Introduction Ionizing radiation (IR) can cause DNA double strand breaks, cell membrane alterations, production of reactive oxygen spe- cies (ROS) and genomic instability in the cells. These injuries will arrest the cell cycle or lead to apoptosis (Kolivand et al. 2017; Najafi et al. 2018). Normally, cells with a high prolifer- ation rate are more sensitive to radiation. The turnover of bone marrow cells is one of the fastest. Thus, the damage to hema- topoietic system as the most sensitive organ in the body to IR leads to hematopoietic dysfunction and myelosuppression. Hence, the radioprotection of hematopoietic system is an important issue in cancer treatment (Fleenor et al. 2010; Shao et al. 2014). Amifostine is the only radioprotector that has been ap- proved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. The side effects like nausea, vomiting, and hypotension associated with it restrict its use in the clinic (Cheki et al. 2018). Therefore, the screening of natural compounds, mostly from plants, for their radioprotecting ability has been an area of research in recent years (Cheki et al. 2016a, b). HESA-A as a natural drug has no side effects like nausea, vomiting, and hypotension. The HESA-A is also administered to cancer patients orally, which is one of the most preferred routes of drug administration, while amifostine is administered intravenously, and whose oral administration is not effective. HESA-A is currently used to improve the quality of life through increasing appetite, in- duction of weight gain, enhancing liver function, and reducing pain in case of end-stage metastatic liver, colon, and breast cancer, as well as osteosarcoma (Abbasi et al. 2015; Ahmadi et al. 2005a, b, 2009, 2010). On the other hand, HESA-A * Mohsen Cheki mohsencheky@gmail.com; cheki-m@ajums.ac.ir 1 Department of Medical Physics, Faculty of Medicine, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran 2 Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran 3 Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, Golestan Hospital, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran 4 Toxicology Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes https://doi.org/10.1007/s10863-019-09808-5