Ref ID : 4974
Charles G. Cranfield, Adam Dawe, Vassil Karloukovski, Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, David de Pomerai, and Jon Dobson; Biogenic magnetite in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc.R.Soc.Lond.B (Suppl.) 271:S436-S439, 2004
Reprint
In File
Notes
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used as a model system in biological research. Recently, examination of the production of heat-shock proteins in this organism in response to mobile phone-type electromagnetic field exposure produced the most robust demonstration to date of a non-thermal, deleterious biological effect. Though these results appear to be sound demonstration of non-thermal bioeffects, to our knowledge, no mechanism has been proposed to explain them. We show, apparently for the first time, that biogenic magnetite, a ferrimagnetic iron oxide, is present in C. elegans. Its presence may have confounding effects on experiments involving electromagnetic fields as well as implications for the use of this nematode as a model system of iron biomineralization in multicellular organisms.