Dependence on electric field intensities of cell biological effects induced by microsecond pulsed electric fields

Some studies have been conducted on reversible electroporation (RE) and/or irreversible electroporation (IRE) induced by microsecond pulsed electric fields (μsPEF), while little attention has been paid to the apoptosis effect caused by μsPEF. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of relationships between the field intensities inducing apoptosis and those resulting in IRE/RE. This paper attempts to study the dependence on electric field intensities of microsecond pulsed field intensity doses of the IRE/RE/apoptosis responses by experiments. 8 electric pulses with repetition rate of 1 Hz, pulse width of 100 μs and incremental electric field intensities from 250 to 2500 V/cm were applied to HeLa cells. And Propidum Iodide (PI), CCK-8 (Cell counting kit-8) assay and flow cytometry were used to study cell electroporation, examine survival cells and detect cell apoptosis respectively so that we can study the dose-effect relationships of IRE/RE/apoptosis induced by μsPEF. It has been observed that with the increase of the electric field intensity, RE, apoptosis and IRE effects occur successively when the electric field intensity reaches certain specific thresholds.