We carried out flow cytometric analysis for multiparametric evaluation of c
ell surface markers related to cellular functions. Specifically, we studied
the expression of CD4, CD8, CD3, CD16, CD9, HLA-DR, and CD14 macrophage re
ceptors expression and cell cycle progression on cells exposed to ELF-EMF I
n addition, we tested the effects of ELF-EMF on CD4 mRNA protein transcript
ion and translation and the cell-cycle progression using an immunofluoresce
nce method.
Our data show that same CD surface marker expression are weakly influenced
by electromagnetic fields, with no differences between cells exposed or not
exposed to ELF-EMFs. However, when the CD4 protein generation was studied,
an indication of protein production was found in lymphocytes exposed to EL
F-EMF, as evidenced by immunofluorescence, Western blotting and RT-PCR anal
ysis. CD16 and CD14 expression were affected by EMF exposure at all limes s
tudied (24, 48, 72 h). The results obtained with cell cycle analysis show t
hat after 48 h of exposure to ELF-EMF PHA-activated and not activated cells
in S phase increase with respect to non-exposed cells. The findings from t
his study demonstrate that under our defined experimental conditions there
is evidence that ELF-EMF has a slight effect on CD4, CD14 and CD16 receptor
expression while the other CD receptors are nor affected.