exposure to mobile phone radiations at 2350 mhz incites cyto- and genotoxic effects in root meristems of allium cepa

The exponential increase of electromagnetic field radiations (emf-r) in the natural environment has raked up the controversies regarding their biological effects. concern regarding the putative capacity of emf-r to affect living beings has been growing due to the ongoing elevation in the use of high frequency emf-r in communication systems, e.g. mobile phones. in the present study, we tried to examine the cyto- and genotoxic potential of mobile phone emf-r at 2350 mhz using onions (allium cepa l.). fresh adventitious onion roots were exposed to continuous emf-r at 2350 mhz for different time periods (1 h, 2 h and 4 h). the evaluation of cytotoxicity was done in terms of mitotic index (mi), phase index and chromosomal aberrations. genotoxicity was investigated employing comet assay in terms of changes in % hdna (head dna) and % tdna (tail dna), tm (tail moment) and otm (olive tail moment). data were analyzed using one-way anova and mean values were separated using post hoc tukey’s test. the results manifested a significant increase of mi and chromosomal aberrations (%) upon 4 h, and ≥ 2 h of exposure, respectively, as compared to the control. no specific changes in phase index in response to emf-r exposure were observed. the % hdna and % tdna values exhibited significant changes in contrast to that of control upon 2 h and 4 h of exposure, respectively. however, tm and otm did not change significantly. our results infer that continuous exposures of radiofrequency emf-r (2350 mhz) for long durations have a potential of inciting cyto- and genotoxic effects in onion root meristems.