Effect of electromagnetic field exposure on chemically induced differentiation of Friend erythroleukemia cells

Whether exposure of humans to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) can cause cancer is controversial and therefore needs further research. We used a Friend erythroleukemia cell line that can be chemically induced to differentiate to determine whether ELF-EMF could alter proliferation and differentiation in these cells in a manner similar to that of a chemical tumor promoter. Exposure of this cell line to 60 Hz ELF-EMF resulted in a dose dependent inhibition of differentiation, with maximal inhibition peaking at 40% and 40 mG (4 muT). ELF-EMF at 10 mG (1.0 muT) and 25 mG (2.5 muT) inhibited differentiation at 0 and 20%, respectively. ELF-EMF at 1.0 (100) and 10.0 G (1,000 muT) stimulated cell proliferation 50% above the sham-treated cells. The activity of telomerase, a marker of undifferentiated cells, decreased 100x when the cells were induced to differentiate under sham conditions, but when the cells were exposed to 0.5 G (50 muT) there was only a 10x decrease. In summary, ELF-EMF can partially block the differentiation of Friend erythroleukemia cells, and this results in a larger population of cells remaining in the undifferentiated, proliferative state, which is similar to the published results of Friend erythroleukemia cells treated with chemical-tumor promoters.