Authors: Djuari, M. A. ;Engelke, M.; Chatterjee, S.; Winkler, M. L.; Bär, C.; Ziemann, C.; Bitsch, A.
11th German PharmTox Summit 2026
Abstract
The fifth generation of mobile phone technology (5G New Radio [NR]) was rolled out in 2020 to meet the ever-increasing demand for stable and fast internet connection. A major change to 5G NR in comparison to 1G to 4G, which uses the frequency range 1 (FR1; <6 GHz) is the utilization of the frequency range 2 (FR2) in millimeter wavelength (24.25-52.6 GHz). Currently, data on potential adversity of 5G FR2 are limited, whereas FR1 has been studied extensively in the last 30 years. Therefore, European Union Horizon Europe-funded project SEAWave aimed to investigate effects of 5G FR2 exposure on human health, focused on skin cancer induction, as 5G FR2 has low penetration depth in human tissue.
Here, we investigated whether intermittent exposure to 27.5 GHz 5G FR2 (10/5 min on/off) can cause genomic instability in three in vitro primary human skin cell models, i.e., adult and juvenile
keratinocytes (NHEK-c and NHEK-fc, respectively) and adult melanocytes (NHEM). Micronucleus induction (MN), telomere length measurement and DNA methylation landscape served as adversity endpoints. Cells were exposed in a blinded manner to 3 different power densities (sham, 3.33 W/m2 and 10 W/m2) for 4 or 24 h, before subjected to peptide-nucleic acid fluorescence in-situ hybridization (PNA-FISH) with DNA counter-staining (MN and telomere analysis) or DNA epigenetic array analysis. Samples were decoded after end of analysis.
After 4 and 24 h exposure, 5G FR2 did not induce any MN formation, as cells maintained basal frequency of 0.2% and 0.6% MN in 2000 cells for the NHEKs and NHEM, respectively. When analyzing telomere number and length a slight decrease in telomere number was detected in NHEK-fc only, after 24 h of exposure to 10 W/m2. Exposure of 5G FR2 also did not change the cell type-specific DNA methylation landscape in all skin cell models tested.
In conclusion, the findings are in line with our previous observations that 5G FR2 exposure did not induce DNA strand breaks in comet assay and mediated no (NHEK-c and NHEM) or small changes (NHEK-fc) in gene expression [1,2]. The experiments on human skin cells thus indicate that 5G FR2 does not cause genomic instability under the conditions used. As a further endpoint the microRNA landscape will be analyzed after exposure of all three skin cell models to 5G FR2.