Human fibroblasts in vitro exposed to 2.45 GHz continuous and pulsed wave signals: Evaluation of biological effects with a multimethodological approach

01 Pubblicazione su rivista
Regalbuto Elisa, Anselmo Anna, De Sanctis Stefania, Franchini Valeria, Lista Florigio, Benvenuto Monica, Bei Roberto, Masuelli Laura, D’Inzeo Guglielmo, Paffi Alessandra, Trodella Eugenio, Sgura Antonella
ISSN: 1422-0067

The increasing exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), especially from wireless communication devices, raises questions about their possible adverse health effects. So far, several in vitro studies evaluating RF-EMF genotoxic and cytotoxic non-thermal effects have reported contradictory results that could be mainly due to inadequate experimental design and lack of well-characterized exposure systems and conditions. Moreover, a topic poorly investigated is related to signal modulation induced by electromagnetic fields. The aim of this study was to perform an analysis of the potential non-thermal biological effects induced by 2.45 GHz exposures through a characterized exposure system and a multimethodological approach. Human fibroblasts were exposed to continuous (CW) and pulsed (PW) signals for 2 h in a wire patch cell-based exposure system at the specific absorption rate (SAR) of 0.7 W/kg. The evaluation of the potential biological effects was carried out through a multimethodological approach, including classical biological markers (genotoxic, cell cycle, and ultrastructural) and the evaluation of gene expression profile through the powerful high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) approach. Our results suggest that 2.45 GHz radiofrequency fields did not induce significant biological effects at a cellular or molecular level for the evaluated exposure parameters and conditions.

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