Effects of 60 Hz electromagnetic field exposure on APP695 transcription levels in differentiating human neuroblastoma cells

Epidemiological studies have suggested that workers with primary occupation that are likely to have resulted in the medium-to-high extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure are at increased risk of Alzheimerʹs disease (AD) pathogenesis. As a first step in investigating the possibility of an association between the ELF-EMF exposure and AD at the cellular level, we have used the differentiating IMR-32 neuroblastoma cells. In double-blind experiments, IMR-32 cells were exposed to the magnetic field intensities of 50, 100, and 200 μT at a frequency of 60 Hz for a period of 4 h at the three ages of differentiation (2, 10, and 16 days after incubation in differentiation medium). We used a custom-made Helmholtz coil setup driven by a 60-Hz sinusoidal signal from a function generator and an in-house built power amplifier. Total RNA extracted from the exposed cells was separated by the agarose gel electrophoresis and transferred to a nylon membrane for the northern hybridization. Digoxygenin-labeled APP695 RNA probes were used to detect changes in the APP695 mRNA levels in response to the ELF-EMF exposure. The results reported herein provided no support for any relationship between the APP695 gene transcription and IMR-32 differentiation age, as well as the magnetic field exposure. This study constitutes the first step towards investigating the possibility of an association between the ELF-EMF exposure and AD manifestations at the cellular level.