Abstract
Microwave (MW) radiation is increasingly being used for several biological applications. Many investigations have focused on understanding the potential influences of pulsed MW irradiation on biological solutions. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of 3.5 GHz pulsed MW radiation-irradiated liquid solutions on the survival of human cancer and normal cells. Different physiological solutions such as phosphate buffer saline, deionized water, and Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM) for cell culture growth were irradiated with pulsed MW radiation (45 shots with the energy of 1 mJ/shot). We then evaluated physiological effects such as cell viability, metabolic activity, mitochondrial membrane potential, cell cycle, and cell death in cells treated with MW-irradiated biological solutions. As MW irradiation with power density ~ 12 kW/cm2 mainly induces reactive nitrogen oxygen species in deionized water, it altered the cell cycle, membrane potential, and cell death rates in U373MG cells due to its high electric field ~ 11 kV/cm in water. Interestingly, MW-irradiated cell culture medium and phosphate-buffered saline did not alter the cellular viability and metabolic energy of cancer and normal cells without affecting the expression of genes responsible for cell death. Taken together, MW-irradiated water can alter cellular physiology noticeably, whereas irradiated media and buffered saline solutions induce negligible or irrelevant changes that do not affect cellular health.
Highlights
Microwave (MW) radiation is increasingly being used for several biological applications
The samples were placed 30 cm away from the window where they were irradiated with high-power microwave (HPM) using 45 shots of the electromagnetic energy “ E ”, which is calculated as E = P × t 2 ∼= 1 mJ per trigger shot, where P is the HPM power reaching the sample, and t ~ 60 ns is the pulse duration
We reported that direct exposure of cells in medium to HPM irradiation leads to non-thermal alterations in cells without impairing their growth[61]
Summary
Microwave (MW) radiation is increasingly being used for several biological applications. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of 3.5 GHz pulsed MW radiation-irradiated liquid solutions on the survival of human cancer and normal cells. While several reports support this phenomenon of MW by demonstrating induction of cell death due to electric fields or low temperatures[36,37], other studies present opposing views on the effects of non-thermal specific e ffects[38,39] This has become a controversial topic and needs further investigation for better understanding of the effect of MW on solutions or biological systems. We aimed to observe the effect of pulsed high-power microwave (HPM)irradiated solutions on human-derived normal and cancer cells These effects were assessed at the cellular level by measuring metabolic viability and cell death. Media are used for normal cell growth in biological systems and consist of macromolecules such as proteins and lipids, whereas PBS and DW are the most common physiological solutions used in biological experiments
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