Dielectric properties during apoptosis in peripheral blood cells from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia patients

Previous work in our laboratories showed that dielectric measurements reveal the very early physical events on damaged DNA which lead to the disruption of the DNA weak stacking forces. We followed up the evolution of this early physical damage into chemical damage within human cells, and were able to study the early stages of membrane alteration, associated with apoptosis, by measuring modifications in the dielectric properties of the cell membrane. It was found that in cells from patients with the B-chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL-cells), which exhibit a higher rate of apoptosis, the values of the real and the imaginary part of the dielectric permittivity, epsiv*, i.e. epsiv\´ and epsiv" respectively, and of the alternate field specific conductivity, sigma_ac, as a function of frequency, were higher than those of the healthy donors, in which apoptosis occurs at lower rate. Finally, large differences were found between the respective epsiv\´, epsiv" and sigma_ac, values observed in the cells isolated from the two leukaemic patients. These differences were matching the large differences observed between the corresponding apoptosis rates at the two leukaemic patients