Effects of sinusoidal 50 Hz magnetic field on viability, cell cycle and apoptosis of HL-60 cells

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, China
² School of Pharmacy, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, China

Corresponding author: dmxiao@sjtu.edu.cn

Received: 13 January 2006
Revised: 10 March 2006
Accepted: 28 April 2006
Published online: 6 July 2006

Abstract

This study was undertaken to investigate whether low frequency magnetic fields can affect the characteristic of cancer cells. To achieve this, HL-60 cells were exposed to 20 mT, 50 Hz sinusoidal magnetic field and the cell viability, cell cycle phase distribution, DNA ladder and apoptotic morphology between control and exposed cells were examined. The results demonstrated that magnetic field had pronounced inhibition effects on cell growth, and small but significant changes in cell cycle phase can be observed. Internucleosomal DNA fragmentation and morphological changes after exposure indicate that the magnetic field induces apoptosis in HL-60 cells. The results also indicate that the growth-inhibitory property of MF on HL-60 cell growth was mainly due to the induction of apoptosis.