In vitro stimulation with a strongly pulsed electromagnetic field on rat basophilic leukemia cells

Abstract

In this study, the effects of pulsed electromagnetic field stimulation with a strong magnetic field on rat basophilic leukemia (RBL-2H3) cells were investigated to confirm the efficacy of the magnetic stimulator for biomedical applications. The maximum intensity of the magnetic field generated from the stimulation coil was 0.203 T, and the transition time was 126 μs. The oscillation time and frequency of the pulsed field were almost 0.1 ms and 8 kHz, respectively. The cell count as well as the mRNA expression and DNA sequence of the cytokine genes, such as the tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-4 (IL-4), of the stimulated RBL-2H3 cells were analyzed with a hemocytometer and via reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction to determine the physiological response under a strong pulse field. After 12 h stimulation, cell death was observed at an increasing scale with the increase in the stimulation time. On the other hand, the cells that were stimulated for 10 min almost doubled as the interval time between the stimulations was extended.