Clastogenicity and aneuploidy in newborn and adult mice exposed to 50 Hz magnetic fields

The concern about health effects of extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields has continued to grow, since Wertheimer and Leeper in 1979 indicated a possible relationship between electrical wiring and childhood cancer. This has led to a great amount of studies, including in vivo and in vitro models, but a causal relationship between ELF exposure and cancer has not been explicitly demonstrated. In this work, in order to detect a possible clastogenic and aneugenic damage, the micronucleus test with CREST staining was performed on erythrocytes from liver and peripheral blood sampled from newborn mice exposed to an ELF magnetic field during the whole intra-uterine life (21 days), and from bone marrow and peripheral blood sampled from adult mice exposed to the same magnetic field for the same period. Results obtained in newborn mice show a significant increase of the micronuclei frequencies. In absolute terms, most of the induced micronuclei were CREST-negative (i.e., formed by a chromosome fragment). However, in relative terms, ELF exposure caused a two-fold increase in CREST-negative micronuclei and a four-fold increase in CREST-positive micronuclei (i.e., formed by a whole chromosome). No significant effect was recorded on exposed adults. These findings suggest to investigate the aneugenic properties of ELF magnetic fields in order to establish a possible relationship between these and carcinogenesis