Effects of gestational exposure to mobile phone radiation on parietal cortical astrocytes in rat offspring / 中华围产医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the effects of gestational exposure to mobile phone radiation on astrocytes in parietal cortex of rat offspring.Methods Nine male Sprague Dawley rats were mated with nine female rats at the age of 12 weeks.Pregnant rats were randomly divided into three groups including control group,short-term gestational exposure group (STE group) and long-term gestational exposure group (LTE group) with three in each group.From day 2 to day 18 of pregnancy,rats in STE and LTE groups were exposed to a mobile phone in talking mode for 6 h and 24 h per day,respectively.Meanwhile,the mobile phone used in control group was kept in standby mode.Morphology and ultrastructure of cells in parietal cortex of 1 month-old offspring rat were studied by Nissle staining and electron microscope,respectively.Cells positive for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and expression of GFAP in parietal cortex were detected by immunohistochemistry and Western bloting.One-way ANOVA,followed by SNK post hoc tests,were used for statistical analysis.Results (1) No significant difference in the morphology of cells in parietal cortex of rat offspring was observed among the three groups by Nissle staining.These cells were regularly arranged with intact cell membrane,clear nuclear membrane,evenly distributed chromatin and distinct nucleoli.(2) Neurons with normal morphology and intact synapse were observed in rat offspring in both control and STE groups.But condensation and migration of nuclear chromatin in neurons and blurred and widened synaptic clefts were observed in LTE group.(3) In offspring of control and STE groups,there were few GFAP-positive cells with small cell body and short processes in parietal cortex.But in LTE group,more GFAP-positive cells with large body and long processes were found.Moreover,long-term exposure to mobile phone during pregnancy resulted in enhanced GFAP expression in parietal cortex (0.79±0.04) as compared with control group (0.37±0.03) and STE group (0.41 ±0.04) (F=147.059,P＜0.001).Conclusions Long-term gestational exposure to mobile phone radiation might lead to activation of astrocytes,increased expression of GFAP and changes in the ultrastructure of neurons in parietal cortex of rat offspring.