3T3 CELL MOTILITY AND MORPHOLOGY BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER EXPOSURE TO EXTREMELY-LOW-FREQUENCY MAGNETIC-FIELDS

Automated image cytometry techniques were used to measure motility and morphology in 3T3 fibroblasts exposed to extremely-low-frequency (ELF ) magnetic fields. Cell motility and morphology were measured as a fun ction of time before, during, and after 3-4 hour exposures to vertical ly oriented, 100 mu T-RMS sinusoidal magnetic fields at Various freque ncies in the 10-63 Hz range. Sham exposures were also carried out. No static DC fields were applied, but the geomagnetic field was almost ve rtical and, therefore, had a large component (28.3 mu T) parallel to t he applied AC field. The morphology and motile behavior of the cells w ere characterized by mathematically defined descriptors, which were ca lculated and averaged for the exposure period as well as for control p eriods that preceded and followed the exposure period. Each experiment involved the tracking of 100 cells that were subjected to one of the test frequencies (unless a sham exposure was being conducted). Statist ical analysis of the results showed that even small changes of 10-20% could be significant at the P < .05 level. Changes on this order were measured in a significant proportion of the experiments. However, beca use such results were seen for both the sham-exposed and the ELF-expos ed cells, and because the range of values that was obtained for the sh am exposures was the same as that obtained for the ELF exposures, we c oncluded that there was no evidence to show that any of the measured c hanges were attributable to the applied ELF magnetic field. (C) 1995 W iley-Liss, Inc.