Electromagnetic Fields, Genomic Instability and Cancer: A Systems Biological View

Abstract

This review discusses the use of systems biology in understanding the biological effectsof electromagnetic fields, with particular focus on induction of genomic instability and cancer. Weintroduce basic concepts of the dynamical systems theory such as the state space and attractors andthe use of these concepts in understanding the behavior of complex biological systems. We thendiscuss genomic instability in the framework of the dynamical systems theory, and describe thehypothesis that environmentally induced genomic instability corresponds to abnormal attractorstates; large enough environmental perturbations can force the biological system to leave normalevolutionarily optimized attractors (corresponding to normal cell phenotypes) and migrate to lessstable variant attractors. We discuss experimental approaches that can be coupled with theoreticalsystems biology such as testable predictions, derived from the theory and experimental methods,that can be used for measuring the state of the complex biological system. We also reviewpotentially informative studies and make recommendations for further studies.

Keywords: attractor; carcinogenesis; dynamical systems theory; electromagnetic fields; genomic instability; state space; systems biology.

Figure 1

A. Bifurcation diagram showing the set of values of the logistic function visited asymptotically at different values of the bifurcation parameter µ. B. The corresponding Lyapunov exponent, which is often used for quantifying the sensitivity of a system to initial conditions [12]. A positive sign of the exponent signifies chaos and its value measures its quantity. Note that the chaotic regimes in A correspond to positive Lyapunov exponent values in B.

Figure 2

The behaviour of the logistic map with different values of the control parameter µ. The map has been iterated for 10000 times and the last 50 values of the time series are shown here.

Figure 3

Visualization of a state space landscape with five basins (1–5; areas in the state space) of attraction.

Figure 4

Schematic representation of cells in normal and variant attractors in one-dimensional projection of the state space.