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Background ELF magnetic fields in incubators: A factor of importance in cell culture work
Author(s) -
Mild Kjell Hansson,
Wilén Jonna,
Mattsson MatsOlof,
Simko Myrtill
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
cell biology international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.932
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1095-8355
pISSN - 1065-6995
DOI - 10.1016/j.cellbi.2009.04.004
Subject(s) - work (physics) , cell culture , factor (programming language) , microbiology and biotechnology , physics , biology , computer science , genetics , thermodynamics , programming language
Extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields in cell culture incubators have been measured. Values of the order of tens of μT were found which is in sharp contrast to the values found in our normal environment (0.05–0.1 μT). There are numerous examples of biological effects found after exposure to MF at these levels, such as changes in gene expression, blocked cell differentiation, inhibition of the effect of tamoxifen, effects on chick embryo development, etc. We therefore recommend that people working with cell culture incubators check for the background magnetic field and take this into account in performing their experiments, since this could be an unrecognised factor of importance contributing to the variability in the results from work with cell cultures.