Effects of electromagnetic radiation in the range 20-300 MHz on the vacuolar potential of characean cells.

A giant cell (circa 10 mm long) of Chara braunii or Nitella flexilis was placed in a microstrip exposure apparatus, and the vacuolar potential at one end was monitored with a micropipette while the other end was exposed to pulses of VHF radiation at electric field strengths up to 6250 V/m. With suitable filtering and signal averaging, offsets of the vacuolar potential could be detected in real time and at levels as low as 1 microV. The only effect that has been reproducibly observed in the carrier frequency range 20-300 MHz was the slow ramp-like hyperpolarization previously reported [Pickard and Barsoum, 1981] and tentatively attributed to electromagnetic heating of the system. The slopes of these ramps became more pronounced with increasing frequency and behaved in accordance with theoretical predictions.