Potential risk resulting from the influence of static magnetic field upon living organisms. Numerically simulated effects of the static magnetic field upon porphine

Every second of modern life unfolds inside a magnetic field. Power lines, electric motors, MRI scanners, wireless chargers and the countless coils of contemporary technology have wrapped the biosphere in static magnetic flux that no previous generation of organisms ever encountered. Whether that flux can reach deep enough into the chemistry of living cells to matter has remained an open and contested question. A new computational study, published in the journal BioRisk, now offers a provocative piece of evidence: when a porphine molecule — the structural parent of some of biology’s most indispensable compounds — is placed in a simulated static magnetic field, it loses stability, its charges shift, and its elegant planar ring buckles out of shape.

Porphine itself does not occur in nature. What occurs in nature is its vast family of derivatives, the porphyrins, which are assembled in living organisms through numerous biosynthetic routes from protoporphyrin IX, a precursor of several biologically essential compounds. These macrocycles coordinate metal ions at their centers and thereby become the active hearts of hemoglobin, the cytochromes and the chlorophylls. Because the biological activity of porphyrins depends on the precise geometry of the macrocyclic ring and on the metal ion held within it, any physical agent capable of deforming that geometry is a candidate for biological risk. The research team, continuing a series of earlier in silico investigations of small inorganic molecules, lower alkanols and monosaccharides, chose porphine as the free ligand of the biologically important metalloporphyrins — the cleanest possible model system for probing the field’s reach.

The study is entirely numerical, an in silico experiment designed to simulate what a static magnetic field does to the electron density of a single molecule. The researchers drew the porphine structure and oriented its principal symmetry axes along the x, y and z axes of a Cartesian system, with the z axis running perpendicular to the molecular plane and the x and y axes lying in the plane, each passing through two of the four ring nitrogen atoms. The magnetic field was then fixed along the same direction, with the south pole approaching from the left side. Because of the quaternary symmetry of the ideal molecule about the z axis, the x and y orientations are indistinguishable when all four nitrogen atoms are equivalent; they become distinguishable when two nitrogens carry hydrogen atoms and two do not, which is the situation relevant to the free ligand.

The computational pipeline combined several established quantum chemistry tools. Molecular structures were prepared with the Fujitsu Scigress 2.0 software, optimized with Gaussian 0.9 using the 6-31G** basis set, and then subjected to a static magnetic field of defined flux density using the Amsterdam Modelling Suite and the non-relativistic orbital momentum NR_LDOTB method. After the field treatment, bond lengths, dipole moments, heats of formation, bond energies and HOMO/LUMO energy levels were recomputed with Gaussian 0.9 employing density functional theory with the B3LYP functional and the 6-31G** basis, using the single-point energy option. Visualization of the frontier orbitals and of the redistribution of electron density was carried out with HyperChem 8.0 together with the AM1 method for conformational optimization. The field strengths simulated spanned 0.0, 0.1, 1, 10 and 100 AFU, where one AFU exceeds 1000 tesla — flux densities far beyond anything generated by everyday technology, chosen deliberately to map the full dose-response curve of the molecule’s reaction.

The headline result is unambiguous: the static magnetic field decreased the stability of porphine. The heat of formation — numerically equal to the dissociation energy in this treatment — rose steadily as the applied flux density increased, and it rose to different extents depending on how the molecule was positioned relative to the field direction. In the field-free reference state, the heat of formation stood at minus 792 kilojoules per mole. When the molecule lay in the x-y plane, the value climbed to minus 704 kilojoules per mole at 100 AFU; in the y-z plane it reached minus 711, and in the x-z plane minus 697. The three orientations did not parallel one another, demonstrating that the molecule’s response is anisotropic — it depends on the angle between the macrocycle and the field vector.

Destabilization was accompanied by polarization. The dipole moment of the field-free molecule is 2.01 debye, but it grew with increasing flux density in every orientation, again to different degrees. The strongest reaction appeared for the molecule situated in the x-y plane, where the dipole moment swelled from 2.01 to 3.09 debye across the simulated range; the y-z orientation showed the mildest growth, from 2.01 to 2.63 debye. Rising heat of formation and rising dipole moment moved together, indicating that the field both pumped energy into the molecular framework and separated its charges, pulling the electron density away from the symmetric distribution that stabilizes the aromatic macrocycle.

Beneath these aggregate numbers lies a detailed map of atomic-scale change. Charge density at individual atoms shifted irregularly as flux density increased, with no simple monotonic pattern. The highest number of irregular charge changes occurred for molecules in the x-y and y-z planes, while the x-z plane showed comparatively few irregularities and even several cases of complete insensitivity to the field. Bond lengths responded in kind. Most bonds lengthened under the field, separating the atoms and their charges, but the changes were irregular against increasing flux density, and the greatest number of irregular bond-length changes was observed for the molecule in the x-y plane. Some individual bonds reacted dramatically: certain C–H bonds in the x-y orientation stretched from a normal 1.080 angstrom to values exceeding 6.7 angstroms at the highest simulated flux density — effectively the field tearing hydrogen atoms away from the carbon framework.

The deformation was not uniform across the molecule. Regardless of orientation, the field engaged above all the pyrrole rings — the four five-membered subunits that hold the hydrogen atoms attached to the ring nitrogen atoms — and the lengths of the C–H and N–H bonds proved to be essential factors. The N–H bonds, which in the undisturbed molecule bend in opposite trans directions out of an otherwise planar ring, reacted strongly: in the y-z orientation, one N–H bond lengthened from about 1.052 angstrom to 1.727 angstroms at 100 AFU. Structures visualized for the molecule in the y-z plane showed the consequence most clearly: the macrocyclic ring lost its planarity, buckling under the combined strain of stretched bonds and redistributed charge. Porphine treated with an external electric field behaves similarly, the authors note, suggesting that strong electromagnetic perturbations of either kind converge on the same structural weak point.

What does this mean for living organisms? The simulated flux densities exceed 1000 tesla at the top of the range, so the results cannot be read directly as a warning about household exposure. But the study establishes a mechanistic principle with real biological weight: a static magnetic field is not chemically inert toward porphyrin-type macrocycles. It deforms the very ring architecture that living systems rely upon for oxygen transport, electron transfer and photosynthesis, and the deformation is anisotropic — it depends on how the molecule sits in the field. In a cell, where metalloporphyrins are embedded in proteins and membranes at every conceivable orientation, a strong field would encounter the macrocycles from all directions at once. The authors frame the work as an attempt to recognize the effects of static magnetic fields of varying flux density on flora and fauna, motivated by considerable environmental pollution with magnetic fields generated by modern technologies. As experimental magnetic field science pushes into ever higher flux densities — and as the density of magnetic field sources in everyday environments continues to climb — the question of how such fields reach into the geometry of life’s core molecules is no longer purely hypothetical. This study provides the first quantitative, atom-resolved answer for the porphyrin parent: the field reaches in, the charges move, the bonds stretch, and the planar ring that biology built its most essential chemistry upon gives way.

Subject of Research: Potential risk resulting from the influence of static magnetic field upon living organisms. Numerically simulated effects of the static magnetic field upon porphine

Article Title: Potential risk resulting from the influence of static magnetic field upon living organisms. Numerically simulated effects of the static magnetic field upon porphine

Article References: Ciesielski, W., Girek, T., Oszczęda, Z., Soroka, J. A., & Tomasik, P. (2022). Potential risk resulting from the influence of static magnetic field upon living organisms. Numerically simulated effects of the static magnetic field upon porphine. BioRisk, 18, 93-104. https://doi.org/10.3897/biorisk.18.80607

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/biorisk.18.80607

Keywords: Potential, risk, resulting, influence, static, magnetic, field, upon, living, organisms, Numerically, simulated