Exposure to 50 Hz electromagnetic radiation promote early maturation and differentiation in newborn rat cerebellar granule neurons

The wish of this work is the study of the effect of electromagnetic (EMF) radiations at a frequency of 50 Hz on the development of cerebellar granule neurons (CGN). Granule neurons, prepared from newborn rat cerebellum (8 days after birth), were cultured after plate-seeding in the presence of EMF radiations, with the plan of characterizing their cellular and molecular biochemistry, after exposure to the electromagnetic stimulus. Five days challenge to EMF radiations showed, by the cytotoxic glutamate (Glu) pulse test, a 30% decrease of cells survival, while only 5% of mortality was reported for unexposed sample. Moreover, blocking the glutamate receptor (GluR) with the Glu competitor MK-801, no toxicity effect after CGN challenge to EMF radiations and Glu was detected. By patch-clamp recording technique, the Kainate-induced currents from 6 days old exposed CGN exhibited a significant increase with respect to control cells. Western blot and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses show that EMF exposure of rats CGN, induces a change in both GluRs proteins and mRNAs expression with respect to control. In addition, the use of monoclonal antibody raised against neurofilament protein (NF-200) reveals an increase in NF-200 synthesis in the exposed CGN. All these results indicate that exposure to non-ionizing radiations contribute to a premature expression of GluRs reducing the life span of CGN, leading to a more rapid cell maturation.