The effect of superposition of 900 MHz and incoherent noise electromagnetic fields on the induction of reactive oxygen species in SP2/0 cell line

Background: Induction of cellular response after exposure to electromagnetic fields is limited to coherent fields. An incoherent noise field is supposed to suppress the bioeffects of regular RF electromagnetic fields. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of GSM mobile phone-induced radiofrequency (RF) on the induction of oxidative stress in SP2/0 cell line. Materials and Methods: This study was also an attempt to assess whether these RF-induced effects can be blocked by superposing the RF radiation and an incoherent magnetic noise. Three groups of cultured cells were used in this study. The cells in the first group were only exposed to RF radiation emitted from a mobile phone simulator. The second group was only exposed to an incoherent noise field and the third group was simultaneously exposed to RF radiation and incoherent noise field. The exposure duration in all groups was 2 hours. The level of ROS production in the cells was quantified by the CM-H2DCFDA fluorescence probe, using flow cytometry technique. Results: Although our results showed increased ROS production after exposure to 900 MHz RF radiation, superposition of 900 MHz RF and the incoherent noise fields did not lead to increased levels of ROS in any experiment. However, the differences between RF exposure group and superposition of RF and noise exposure group were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Altogether our results cannot support the neutralizing effect of noise theory but may confirm the concept that just the coherent fields can be bioeffective while the incoherent noise fields cannot cause any biological effects.