Estimation of Mutagenic and Co-mutagenic Activity of EMFs Using Bacterial Mutation Assay

INTRODUCTION Many studies on the biological effects of electric and magnetic fields have been conducted since Wertheimer and Leeper reported an association between wiring configuration and childhood cancer among residents in Denver, Colorado. The genetic effects, especially mutagenicity and carcinogenicity, of electromagnetic fields have also been studied experimentally with positive and negative results. The contradiction in results is probably due to the variety of test systems used and the difference in the frequency, density and wave shape of electric and magnetic fields used in the experiments. To detect the nature of the biological effect of electric and magnetic fields, it is effective to use its density as strong as possible. It have been reported that a 5 T static magnetic field showed weak recombinogenicity in Drosophila melanogaster and weak co-mutagenicity in Escherichia coli. Bacterial mutation assay (Ames test) which was developed by Ames et al. is widely used to screen mutagenicity of chemicals and environmental contaminants, etc. Therefore, this test is useful for evaluation and comparison of the possible mutagenic effect of exposure to electric and magnetic fields. In this study, this bacterial mutation assay (Ames test) was applied for detection of mutagenicity of static magnetic fields (up to 5 T) and 50 Hz sinusoidal electric and magnetic fields (up to 40 mT).