Publications

Cranfield, CG, Dawe, A, Karloukovski, V, Dunin–Borkowski, RE, de Pomerai, D & Dobson, J 2004, 'Biogenic magnetite in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, vol. 271, no. suppl_6.
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The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used as a model system in biological research. Recently, examination of the production of heat-shock proteins in this organism in response to mobile phone-type electromagnetic field exposure produced the most robust demonstration to date of a non-thermal, deleterious biological effect. Though these results appear to be a sound demonstration of non-thermal bioeffects, to our knowledge, no mechanism has been proposed to explain them. We show, apparently for the first time, that biogenic magnetite, a ferrimagnetic iron oxide, is present in C. elegans. Its presence may have confounding effects on experiments involving electromagnetic fields as well as implications for the use of this nematode as a model system for iron biomineralization in multi-cellular organisms. © 2004 The Royal Society.