Institute of Cancer Research, Department of Internal Medicine 1, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Center for Public Health, Department of Environmental Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
PLoS One. 2018 Apr 12;13(4):e0193677. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193677. eCollection 2018.
Some epidemiological studies indicate that the use of mobile phones causes cancer in humans (in particular glioblastomas). It is known that DNA damage plays a key role in malignant transformation; therefore, we investigated the impact of the UMTS signal which is widely used in mobile telecommunications, on DNA stability in ten different human cell lines (six brain derived cell lines, lymphocytes, fibroblasts, liver and buccal tissue derived cells) under conditions relevant for users (SAR 0.25 to 1.00 W/kg). We found no evidence for induction of damage in single cell gel electrophoresis assays when the cells were cultivated with serum. However, clear positive effects were seen in a p53 proficient glioblastoma line (U87) when the cells were grown under serum free conditions, while no effects were found in p53 deficient glioblastoma cells (U251). Further experiments showed that the damage disappears rapidly in U87 and that exposure induced nucleotide excision repair (NER) and does not cause double strand breaks (DSBs). The observation of NER induction is supported by results of a proteome analysis indicating that several proteins involved in NER are up-regulated after exposure to UMTS; additionally, we found limited evidence for the activation of the γ-interferon pathway. The present findings show that the signal causes transient genetic instability in glioma derived cells and activates cellular defense systems.
一些流行病学研究表明，使用手机会导致人类患癌症（尤其是脑胶质瘤）。已知 DNA 损伤在恶性转化中起着关键作用；因此，我们在与用户相关的条件下（SAR 值为 0.25 到 1.00 W/kg），研究了广泛用于移动通信的 UMTS 信号对十种不同的人源细胞系（六种源自大脑的细胞系、淋巴细胞、成纤维细胞、肝脏和口腔组织细胞）中 DNA 稳定性的影响。当细胞在含血清的条件下培养时，我们在单细胞凝胶电泳分析中没有发现 DNA 损伤的证据。然而，在无血清条件下培养时，p53 功能正常的脑胶质瘤细胞系（U87）中出现了明显的阳性效应，而 p53 缺失的脑胶质瘤细胞系（U251）中则没有发现这种效应。进一步的实验表明，U87 中的损伤迅速消失，并且暴露诱导核苷酸切除修复（NER），而不会导致双链断裂（DSBs）。暴露诱导 NER 的观察结果得到了蛋白质组分析结果的支持，该结果表明，暴露于 UMTS 后，有几种参与 NER 的蛋白质上调；此外，我们还发现 γ-干扰素途径的激活证据有限。本研究结果表明，该信号会导致神经胶质瘤衍生细胞的短暂遗传不稳定性，并激活细胞防御系统。
