Firefly luciferin-luciferase luminescence by milligauss ultra-low frequency pulsed magnetic field applied pure water without ATP

This paper reports on the biological activities of milligauss magnetic field (mG) applied PBS and also of mG-applied highly purified water on biological systems including CHO cells and luciferin-luciferase system. PBS and highly purified water were exposed to ultra low frequency magnetic field (mg-ULF) which was generated by an Helmholtz coil under visible light . When mG/light-applied pure water or PBS was added to the medium, CHO cells which have UTP receptor on the cell surface and which responds to exogenous ATP which in turn causes an increase of intracellular Ca/sup 2+/ level were found to elevate intracellular Ca/sup 2+/ level and suramin, an antagonist for the receptor, blocked the mG/light-applied PBS or water activity on the cells. When magnetic field was applied on pure water under visible light, for more than 12 hours at 40/spl deg/C, the pure water caused the luminescence of luciferin in the presence of luciferase. This reaction did not require ATP nor Mg/sup 2+/ in the reaction mixture at all. However, without luciferase in the reaction mixture no luminescence was observed. This mG/light-applied water did not scavenge luciferin-luciferase luminescence by the water. This is the first report that luciferin-luciferase luminescence without ATP and Mg/sup 2+/ and this raises the question of what kind of molecular species play stable energy donor in place of ATP. One hypothesis is that the magnetic energy applied onto pure water was stored in certain water (cluster) molecule: H/sub 3/O/sup +/(H2O)/sub n/, as a form with stable hydrogen bond resonance, and transferred to the enzyme protein molecule resulting to form oxy-luciferin with luminescence.