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Potential Protection of Green Tea Polyphenols Against 1800 MHz Electromagnetic Radiation-Induced Injury on Rat Cortical Neurons

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Abstract

Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) are harmful to public health, but the certain anti-irradiation mechanism is not clear yet. The present study was performed to investigate the possible protective effects of green tea polyphenols against electromagnetic radiation-induced injury in the cultured rat cortical neurons. In this study, green tea polyphenols were used in the cultured cortical neurons exposed to 1800 MHz EMFs by the mobile phone. We found that the mobile phone irradiation for 24 h induced marked neuronal cell death in the MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide) and TUNEL (TdT mediated biotin-dUTP nicked-end labeling) assay, and protective effects of green tea polyphenols on the injured cortical neurons were demonstrated by testing the content of Bcl-2 Assaciated X protein (Bax) in the immunoprecipitation assay and Western blot assay. In our study results, the mobile phone irradiation-induced increases in the content of active Bax were inhibited significantly by green tea polyphenols, while the contents of total Bax had no marked changes after the treatment of green tea polyphenols. Our results suggested a neuroprotective effect of green tea polyphenols against the mobile phone irradiation-induced injury on the cultured rat cortical neurons.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by funds from NSFC Research Grant (10925208) and by Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20091102110031). We thank Professor Baolu Zhao (State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, Beijing 100101, P.R. China) for the gift of green tea polyphenols.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Biomechanics and Mechanobiology of Ministry of Education, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Mei-Li Liu & Yu-Bo Fan

  2. Institute of Acoustics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jian-Qiang Wen

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  1. Mei-Li Liu
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  2. Jian-Qiang Wen
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  3. Yu-Bo Fan
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Correspondence to Mei-Li Liu or Yu-Bo Fan.

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Liu, ML., Wen, JQ. & Fan, YB. Potential Protection of Green Tea Polyphenols Against 1800 MHz Electromagnetic Radiation-Induced Injury on Rat Cortical Neurons. Neurotox Res 20, 270–276 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12640-011-9240-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12640-011-9240-4

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