Fig. 2

Chernobyl fibroblasts survive in higher oxidant concentration and have more antioxidants than control fibroblasts. a Fibroblasts isolated from Chernobyl bank voles were, on average, able to grow in about 40 μM higher concentration of oxidizing agent tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBH2O2) than control bank vole fibroblasts. Cells were treated with different concentrations of the oxidant for 24 h after which fresh cell culture media was changed and cells were let grow for 7 days before scoring the wells that remained 100% confluent. b. Chernobyl fibroblasts have significantly higher total antioxidant capacity in untreated and oxidant-treated cells than control fibroblasts. For oxidant treatment cells were grown in 25 μM of TBH2O2 for 24 h before the total antioxidant capacity was measured. Results are from three separate experiments using eight Chernobyl (N = 24) and eight control (N = 24) cell lines, variation is shown by standard deviation, and statistical analysis was done with Student’s t-test (* = p ≤ 0.05, ** = p ≤ 0.01)