Weak magnetic fields alter stem cell–mediated growth

" To determine whether WMFs affect tissue growth during planarian regeneration, we amputated animals above and below the pharynx (feeding tube) and examined blastema outgrowth at 3 days postamputation (dpa) (Fig. 1A) following WMF exposure. The setup of our magnetic field apparatus is outlined in fig. S1. We found that 200 μT WMF exposure produced blastema sizes that were significantly reduced as compared to both untreated and Earth-normal 45 μT field strength controls (Fig. 1, C and D). Temporal analyses, where regenerates were exposed for different lengths of time during the first 72 hours of regeneration (Fig. 1B), revealed that 200 μT exposure was required early and must be maintained throughout blastema formation to affect growth [24 hours postamputation (hpa) to 3 dpa]. Because shorter, single-day exposures failed to affect blastema size, these data suggest the presence of recovery mechanisms to ensure initiation of new growth. Furthermore, we found that WMFs produced field strength–dependent effects: Significant reductions of blastema size were observed from 100 to 400 μT, but conversely, a significant increase in outgrowth occurred at 500 μT (Fig. 1E)." {Credits 1}

{Credits 1} 🎪 Van Huizen, A. V., Morton, J. M., Kinsey, L. J., Von Kannon, D. G., Saad, M. A., Birkholz, T. R., ... & Beane, W. S. (2019). Weak magnetic fields alter stem cell–mediated growth. Science advances, 5(1), eaau7201. © 2019 The Authors. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).