In order to determine the effect of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) on the frequency of micronuclei (MN), aneuploidy and chromosomal rearrangement induced by bleomycin (BLM) in human fibroblast cells, a 60 Hz ELF-EMF of 0.8 mT field strength was applied either alone or with ELM throughout the culture period and a micronucleus-centromere assay was performed. Our results indicate that the frequencies of MN, aneuploidy and chromosomal rearrangement induced by ELM increased in a dose-dependent manner. The exposure of cells to 0.8 mT ELF-EMF followed by ELM exposure for 3 hours led to significant increases in the frequencies of MN and aneuploidy compared to BLM treatment for 3 hours alone (p<0.05), but no significant difference was observed between field exposed and sham exposed control cells. The obtained results suggest that low density ELF-EMF could act as an enhancer of the initiation process of BLM rather than as an initiator of mutagenic effects in human fibroblast.
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