Effects of 3G cell phone exposure on the structure and function of the human cytochrome P450 reductase

• Structure of cytochrome P450 reductase was altered under mobile phone-like exposure.
• Circular dichroism and dynamic light scattering showed protein conformation narrowing.
• Activity assessed by reduction of cytochrome C was decreased.
• Heating alone does not explain this effect, meaning that its mechanism must be sought.
• If this happens at usage power, it could alter detoxification metabolism in humans.

Cell phones increase exposure to radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Whether EMFs exert specific effects on biological systems remains debatable. This study investigated the effect of cell phone exposure on the structure and function of human NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase (CPR). CPR plays a key role in the electron transfer to cytochrome P450, which takes part in a wide range of oxidative metabolic reactions in various organisms from microbes to humans. Human CPR was exposed for 60 min to 1966-MHz RF inside a transverse electromagnetic cell (TEM-cell) placed in an incubator. The specific absorption rate (SAR) was 5 W·kg− 1. Conformation changes have been detected through fluorescent spectroscopy of flavin and tryptophan residues, and investigated through circular dichroism, dynamic light scattering and microelectrophoresis. These showed that CPR was narrowed. By using cytochrome C reductase activity to assess the electron flux through the CPR, the Michaelis Menten constant (Km) and the maximum initial velocity (Vmax) decreased by 22% as compared with controls. This change was due to small changes in the tertiary and secondary structures of the protein at 37 °C. The relevance of these findings to an actual RF exposure scenario demands further biochemical and in-vivo confirmation.

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