2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Control of bacterial growth and enzymatic activity by an applied magnetic field

Research Project

Project/Area Number	22780096
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Applied biochemistry
Research Institution	Tokyo Denki University
Principal Investigator	ABE Tomoko 東京電機大学, 理工学部, 助教 (40553524)
Project Period (FY)	2010 – 2012
Keywords	応用微生物学 / 磁場 / 環境
Research Abstract	Magnetic fields may induce multiple effects in biological systems, including change in DNA replication or transcriptional levels and modifications of ion and protein flow across membranes. However, effects o f the magnetic field on organisms are still controversial. In this study, we focused on growth changes of environmental microbes caused by the applied magnetic field (hundreds of mT range of a magnetic flux density). Some microbes that should be susceptible to the applied magnetic field were i s o l a t e d from the soil. To reveal the species or strain of these microbes and these mechanisms, we investigated changes of these microbial metabolisms caused by the applied magnetic field