A new study in iScience (Cell Press) found that chronic electromagnetic field exposure alters human Schwann cell behavior — increasing cell migration and reducing cell adhesion — while shifting gene expression toward patterns associated with hearing loss and vestibular schwannoma (acoustic neuroma).
"Recently, concerns have been raised about the expansion of environmental electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and the increasing incidence of vestibular schwannoma (VS)."
"The expression of motility proteins increased, while that of cell-to-cell adhesion proteins decreased. The functional clustering of genes differentially expressed matched those involved in hearing loss."
Exposure
"Cells were exposed to 50 Hz 0.1 T EMF (at room temperature) for 10-min treatment per day for 5 consecutive days (every 24 h, at the same daytime) mimicking the chronic exposure [...] The EMF was generated using a magnetic field generator, specifically designed and customized by Ugo Basile (Gemonio, Italy) [...] Cells used as controls (i.e., sham-exposure) were plated in the same culture conditions, maintained in the same temperature conditions, but were not exposed to the EMF."
iScience Journal Level 1ⓘ
