Low power microwaves induce changes in gating function of Trpv4 ion channel proteins

Public exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMR) emitted by radiofrequency (RF) and microwave (MW) technology devices such as mobile phones, Wi-Fi, smart meters and different medical equipment has increased significantly in the last decade. With more than 200 times increase in mobile phone use in the last 10 years, health concerns regarding significant increase in exposure to low power RF/MW radiation have been raised. In response, the World Health Organisation (WHO) designed a research agenda that is based on the views of the leading international experts in RF bioeffect research. Research agenda items include animal and human studies, dosimetry and risk communication research, and in vitro mechanistic studies. A number of studies were undertaken to investigate biological and health effects of low-level exposures in the range of 900–2600 MHz (3G and 4G mobile networks). It was shown that RF-EMF can target cellular plasma membrane enzymes and receptors, and hence can control the cell function. RF radiation can also alter the intracellular calcium homoeostasis and consequently target the cell proliferation and differentiation as well as modify bioactivity of different enzymes. TRPV4 is a non-selective cation channel that is expressed in various tissues, including epithelial and endothelial cells, which can be activated by different stimuli such as heat, hypotonic stress, GSK1016790A, derivatives of arachidonic acids and shear stress. This study is aimed to evaluate the effects of MW radiation at 1800 MHz and power of 17dBm (47 V/m) on TRPP4 ion channel protein expressed in Hek-293 cells to better understanding of thermal/non-thermal nature of RF-EMF interaction with normal epithelial cells. Here, we used Ca
⁺²
imaging and confocal microscopy to investigate the effects of RF/MW radiation at 1800 MHz and power of 17dBm on TRPV4 channel gating in response to its selective agonist GSK1016790A. We found that 4hrs exposure to MWs at 1800 MHz and 17dBm modulates the response of TRPV4 when compared to the control group. These findings provide evidence that these particular non-thermal exposures induce changes in the biological activity of TRPV4.