Molecular responses of Jurkat T-cells to 1763 MHz radiofrequency radiation

Abstract

Purpose: The biological effects of exposure to mobile phone emitted radiofrequency (RF) radiation are the subject of intense study, yet the hypothesis that RF exposure is a potential health hazard remains controversial. In this paper, we monitored cellular and molecular changes in Jurkat human T lymphoma cells after irradiating with 1763 MHz RF radiation to understand the effect on RF radiation in immune cells.

Materials and methods: Jurkat T-cells were exposed to RF radiation to assess the effects on cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, DNA damage and gene expression. Jurkat cells were exposed to 1763 MHz RF radiation at 10 W/kg specific absorption rate (SAR) and compared to sham exposed cells.

Results: RF exposure did not produce significant changes in cell numbers, cell cycle distributions, or levels of DNA damage. In genome-wide analysis of gene expressions, there were no genes changed more than two-fold upon RF-radiation while ten genes change to 1.3 ∼ 1.8-fold. Among ten genes, two cytokine receptor genes such as chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 3 (CXCR3) and interleukin 1 receptor, type II (IL1R2) were down-regulated upon RF radiation, but they were not directly related to cell proliferation or DNA damage responses.

Conclusion: These results indicate that the alterations in cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, DNA integrity or global gene expression was not detected upon 1763 MHz RF radiation under 10 W/kg SAR for 24 h to Jurkat T cells.

Keywords:

• Radiofrequency radiation
• cell proliferation
• DNA damage
• cell cycle
• microarray
• gene expression