Effects Induced “in vitro” by Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (E.L.F.) on Blastogenesis of Human Lymphocytes and on Thromboxane B-2-Release by Ionophore-Stimulated Neutrophils

Abstract

Exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (E.L.F.) can produce functional changes in biological systems. Dixey and Rein (1) have reported that 3H-noradrenaline release from PC12 cells is increased by a 500 Hz E.L.F. Pilla et al. (2) have observed that cell differentiation of frog blood cell is modified by exposure to a E.L.F., in a waveform and frequency-dependent way. The response of cultured bone and bone cells to hormones in the presence of E.L.F. have been studied by Luben et al. (3). E.L.F. exposure blocks the inhibition of collagen synthesis by parathyroid hormone, but it does not influence the effects of 1,25-di-hydroxy vitamin D3, a hormone that acts via a cytoplasmatic rather than a membrane receptor. Lyle et al. (4) describe an inhibitory effect of 450-MHz fields, sinusoidally modulated at frequencies from 0 to 100 Hz, on the T-lymphocyte cytotoxicity. In this report we describe the effects of E.L.F. on two different human cell systems “in vitro”: lymphocytes stimulated with non specific mitogens and polymorphonuclears leukocytes (P.M.N.) activated by calcium ionophore A23187 (5,6).