Abstract
The biological effects of high-gradient magnetic fields (HGMFs) have steadily gained the increased attention of researchers from different disciplines, such as cell biology, cell therapy, targeted stem cell delivery and nanomedicine. We present a theoretical framework towards a fundamental understanding of the effects of HGMFs on intracellular processes, highlighting new directions for the study of living cell machinery: changing the probability of ion-channel on/off switching events by membrane magneto-mechanical stress, suppression of cell growth by magnetic pressure, magnetically induced cell division and cell reprograming, and forced migration of membrane receptor proteins. By deriving a generalized form for the Nernst equation, we find that a relatively small magnetic field (approximately 1 T) with a large gradient (up to 1 GT/m) can significantly change the membrane potential of the cell and thus have a significant impact on not only the properties and biological functionality of cells but also cell fate.
Highlights
Interplay between biological and physical factors in the cell machinery, the role of the magnetic gradient force can increase with increasing magnetic gradient
The derivative is Bearing in mind the former expression for the magnetic gradient force, in this case, when the ions diffuse in the presence of an HGMF, the Nernst equation reads as ln no ± p ni ze dB dl where e is the electron charge, z is the ion valence (z =+1 for a positive, univalent ion), F is the Faraday constant, R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature, Vm is the potential difference between the two membrane sides, and no and ni are the ion concentrations outside and inside a cell, L is the half-cell size
We use the term “effector” to indicate a structural component of a cell that responds to an applied high-gradient, static magnetic field
Summary
Interplay between biological and physical factors in the cell machinery, the role of the magnetic gradient force can increase with increasing magnetic gradient. In the vicinity of a magnetic nanostructure, magnetic field gradients can be large enough (up to 107 Tm−1) for the field to vary appreciably over the separation between electrons in a radical pair[21] thereby modulating the intracellular magnetocatalytic activity. A non-uniform magnetic field up to 610 T with a gradient on the order of 106 Tm−1 on the millimeter scale was recently generated with a laser-driven capacitor-coil target by proton deflectometry[23]. To identify the intracellular targets and molecular effectors of magnetic fields and to reveal the underlying mechanisms, many complex multidisciplinary problems must be solved. We present a theoretical framework for a fundamental understanding of the effects of magnetic gradient forces on intracellular processes, highlighting new directions of the study of living cell machinery affected by magneto-mechanical forces
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