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Assessing the combined effect of extremely low-frequency magnetic field exposure and oxidative stress on LINE-1 promoter methylation in human neural cells

Overview of attention for article published in Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, March 2017
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Title
Assessing the combined effect of extremely low-frequency magnetic field exposure and oxidative stress on LINE-1 promoter methylation in human neural cells
Published in
Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, March 2017
DOI 10.1007/s00411-017-0683-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Gianfranco Giorgi, Chiara Pirazzini, Maria Giulia Bacalini, Cristina Giuliani, Paolo Garagnani, Miriam Capri, Ferdinando Bersani, Brunella Del Re

Abstract

Extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) have been classified as "possibly carcinogenic", but their genotoxic effects are still unclear. Recent findings indicate that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to the genome dysfunction and it is well known that they are affected by environmental factors. To our knowledge, to date the question of whether exposure to ELF-MF can influence epigenetic modifications has been poorly addressed. In this paper, we investigated whether exposure to ELF-MF alone and in combination with oxidative stress (OS) can affect DNA methylation, which is one of the most often studied epigenetic modification. To this end, we analyzed the DNA methylation levels of the 5'untranslated region (5'UTR) of long interspersed nuclear element-1s (LINE-1 or L1), which are commonly used to evaluate the global genome methylation level. Human neural cells (BE(2)C) were exposed for 24 and 48 h to extremely low frequency pulsed magnetic field (PMF; 50 Hz, 1 mT) in combination with OS. The methylation levels of CpGs located in L1 5'UTR region were measured by MassARRAY EpiTYPER. The results indicate that exposures to the single agents PMF and OS induced weak decreases and increases of DNA methylation levels at different CpGs. However, the combined exposure to PMF and OS lead to significant decrease of DNA methylation levels at different CpG sites. Most of the changes were transient, suggesting that cells can restore homeostatic DNA methylation patterns. The results are discussed and future research directions outlined.

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The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 21 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 21 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 6 29%
Student > Ph. D. Student 4 19%
Unspecified 1 5%
Student > Doctoral Student 1 5%
Professor 1 5%
Other 2 10%
Unknown 6 29%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Engineering 2 10%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 2 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 1 5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 1 5%
Unspecified 1 5%
Other 4 19%
Unknown 10 48%