Assessing LINE-1 retrotransposition activity in neuroblastoma cells exposed to extremely low-frequency pulsed magnetic fields

In this research we address the question whether exposure to extremely low-frequency pulsed magnetic fields (EMF-PMF) could affect the mobility of the human LINE-1RP retrotransposon. To this purpose, an in vitro retrotransposition assay was used on human neuroblastoma BE(2) cells exposed for 48 h to 1 mT, 50 Hz PMF, or sham-exposed. Moreover, since it is well known that retrotransposition causes DNA double-strand breaks (DSB), an estimation of γ-H2AX foci, which is a marker of DNA DSB, was carried out on PMF- and sham-exposed samples. The results show that PMF-exposed cells had a lower number of both retrotransposition events and DNA DSB compared with sham-exposed samples. These results suggest that exposure to PMF can interfere with retrotransposition activity by inducing a decrease of retrotransposition events.