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Cell biology

Non-thermal heat-shock response to microwaves

Nature volume 405, pages 417–418 (2000)Cite this article

A Retraction to this article was published on 22 March 2006

Abstract

Exposure limits set for microwave radiation assume that any biological effects result from tissue heating1: non-thermal effects have been reported but remain controversial. We show here that prolonged exposure to low-intensity microwave fields can induce heat-shock responses in the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This effect appears to be non-thermal, suggesting that current exposure limits set for microwave equipment may need to be reconsidered.

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Figure 1: Saline9 suspensions of young adult PC72 worms grown synchronously at 15 °C (ref. 10) were split between three conditions for a total of 18 h: (1) exposed to microwaves (in TEM cell at 750 MHz and 0.5 W; ref. 5) within a Leec LT3 incubator; (2) temperature controls shielded with aluminium foil in the same incubator; (3) baseline controls at 15 °C.
Figure 2: PC72 and PC161 (similar to PC72, but carrying an additional GFP reporter under hsp16 control) worms were either exposed for 18 h at 25 °C to microwaves (750 MHz, 0.5 W) or kept as 25 °C controls, then reporter expression was localized in situ by staining with X-gal (PC72) or viewing under ultraviolet light on a fluorescence microscope (PC161).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Toxicology Division, School of Biological Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    David de Pomerai, Clare Daniells, Helen David, Joanna Allan, Ian Duce & Mohammed Mutwakil

  2. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    David Thomas & Phillip Sewell

  3. Medical Countermeasures, CBD Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP4 0JQ, UK

    John Tattersall

  4. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of British Columbia, 2146 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, V6T 1Z3, Canada

    Don Jones & Peter Candido

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  1. David de Pomerai
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  2. Clare Daniells
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  3. Helen David
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de Pomerai, D., Daniells, C., David, H. et al. Non-thermal heat-shock response to microwaves . Nature 405, 417–418 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35013144

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