Induction of apoptosis and reduced mobility for Caenorhabditis elegans by super-paramagnetic nanoparticles enhanced magnetic field

• Main Authors: Li-Ko Yeh, 葉禮閣
• Other Authors: Guewha Steven Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/09634762277601542274

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 奈米科技研究所 === 95 === Intuitively, the environmental electro-magnetic field may cause bad influence and bring abnormalities to life, such as cancer. For decades, scientist worked hard to look for the association between elctro-magnetic field and diseases desperately. The direct evidence, however, is yet to be identified. In the current study, we employed Caenorhabditis elegans as a model and applied localized strong magnetic field through administration of super-paramagnetic nanoparticles fed into the worms. We found that the 3-day treatment of magnetic field caused significant retardation to the mobility of C. elegans. A reduction of 50 % in mobility was observed to the N2 L4 worm treated with localized magnetic field for 3 days. To investigate possible molecular mechanisms underlying the retardation of mobility, real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-RT PCR) was performed using more than 100 pairs of primer specific to genes directly associated with apoptosis, oncogenesis, and oxidative stress. Expression levels were altered for at least 8 folds for more than 50 genes tested in this study. To validate the correlation between magnetic field and apoptotic genes, ced-3, ced-6, and cbp-1mutant worms were obtained from CGC and were tested for their sensitivity to the magnetic field. Ced-3 mutant worm was insensitive to magnetic field, while ced-6 and cbp-1 mutant worms were sensitive to magnetic field. The lost of sensitivity to magnetic field in the ced-3 mutant strongly suggested that apoptosis was caused by the magnetic field and since ced-3 is lack of apoptosis thus is insensitive to the magnetic field. Sensitivity of ced-6 and cbp-1mutants was expected due to their assistant role in the apoptosis. In conclusion, the current study provided direct evidences that magnetic field caused apoptosis which led to the retardation for the mobility.