Skin Fibroblasts from Individuals Self-Diagnosed as Electrosensitive Reveal Two Distinct Subsets with Delayed Nucleoshuttling of the ATM Protein in Common.

Electromagnetic hyper-sensitivity (EHS) and its causal link with radio-frequencies raise a major question of public health. In the frame of the clinical study DEMETER, 26 adult volunteers self-diagnosed as EHS-positive agreed to reply to a self-assessment questionnaire and to provide a skin biopsy sampling to establish a primary fibroblast cell line. The questionnaire and the biological data revealed, independently, 2 subsets of donors associated each with a low background, highly responsive (LBHR) and a high background, lowly responsive (HBLR) phenotype. A couple of subsets based on questionnaire data and based on the yield of spontaneous DNA double-strand breaks were found to be composed of the same donors at 64% identity. After exposure to X-rays, and application of anti-γH2AX, pATM, and MRE11 immunofluorescence, all the DEMETER fibroblasts (26/26) elicited a delayed radiation-induced ATM nucleoshuttling (RIANS). The use of RIANS biomarkers showed that the 2 phenotypes described above corresponded to DEMETER donors with a high risk of cancer (LBHR) or high risk of accelerated aging (HBLR). By exposing DEMETER cells to H2O2 followed by an antioxidative agent, we confirmed that EHS may be related to the management of DNA strand breaks. A preliminary molecular model of EHS inspired by the RIANS model was proposed.