Gene expression does not change significantly in C3H 10T(1/2) cells after exposure to 847.74 CDMA or 835.62 FDMA radiofrequency radiation

Whitehead TD, Moros EG, Brownstein BH, Roti Roti JL

Radiat Res. 165(6):626-635, 2006

In vitro experiments with C3H 10T(1/2) mouse cells were performed to determine whether Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) modulated radiofrequency (RF) radiations induce changes in gene expression.

After the cells were exposed to either modulation for 24 h at a specific absorption rate (SAR) of 5 W/ kg, RNA was extracted from both exposed and sham-exposed cells for gene expression analysis. As a positive control, cells were exposed to 0.68 Gy of X rays and gene expression was evaluated 4 h after exposure.

Gene expression was evaluated using the Affymetrix U74Av2 GeneChip to detect changes in mRNA levels. Each exposure condition was repeated three times. The GeneChip data were analyzed using a two-tailed t test, and the expected number of false positives was estimated from t tests on 20 permutations of the six sham RF-field-exposed samples.

For the X-ray-treated samples, there were more than 90 probe sets with expression changes greater than 1.3-fold beyond the number of expected false positives. Approximately one-third of these genes had previously been reported in the literature as being responsive to radiation.

In contrast, for both CDMA and FDMA radiation, the number of probe sets with an expression change greater than 1.3-fold was less than or equal to the expected number of false positives. Thus the 24-h exposures to FDMA or CDMA RF radiation at 5 W/kg had no statistically significant effect on gene expression.