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Low frequency (LF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are abundantly present in modern society and in the last 20 years the interest about the possible effect of extremely low frequency (ELF) EMFs on human health has increased progressively. Epidemiological studies, designed to verify whether EMF exposure may be a potential risk factor for health, have led to controversial results. The possible association between EMFs and an increased incidence of childhood leukemia, brain tumors or neurodegenerative diseases was not fully elucidated. On the other hand, EMFs are widely used, in neurology, psychiatry, rheumatology, orthopedics and dermatology, both in diagnosis and in therapy. In vitro studies may help to evaluate the mechanism by which LF-EMFs affect biological systems. In vitro model of wound healing used keratinocytes (HaCaT), neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) as a model for analysis of differentiation, metabolism and functions related to neurodegenerative processes, and monocytic cell line (THP-1) was used as a model for inflammation and cytokines production, while leukemic cell line (K562) was used as a model for hematopoietic differentiation. MCP-1, a chemokine that regulates the migration and infiltration of memory T cells, natural killer (NK), monocytes and epithelial cells, has been demonstrated to be induced and involved in various diseases. Since, varying the parameters of EMFs different effects may be observed, we have studied MCP-1 expression in HaCaT, SH-SY5Y, THP-1 and K562 exposed to a sinusoidal EMF at 50 Hz frequency with a flux density of 1 mT (rms). Our preliminary results showed that EMF-exposure differently modifies the expression of MCP-1 in different cell types. Thus, the MCP-1 expression needs to be better determined, with additional studies, with different parameters and times of exposure to ELF-EMF.

Exposure to EMFs (electromagnetic fields) results in a number of important biological changes, including modification of genetic expression. We have investigated the effect of 60 Hz sinusoidal EMFs at a magnetic flux density of 80 μT on the expression of the luciferase gene contained in a plasmid labelled as pEMF (EMF plasmid). This gene construct contains the specific sequences for the induction of hsp70 (heat-shock protein 70) expression by EMFs, as well as the reporter for the luciferase gene. The pEMF vector was electrotransferred into quadriceps muscles of BALB/c mice that were later exposed to EMFs. Increased luciferase expression was observed in mice exposed to EMFs 2 h daily for 7 days compared with controls (P<0.05). These data along with other reports in the literature suggest that EMFs can have far-reaching effects on the genome.