The electrophysiological effect of nanosecond pulsed electric fields on magnetic fluid hyperthermia to treat hela cells

Hyperthermia using superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) has attracted increasing attentions due to the encouraging antitumor effect. Intracellular hyperthermia is more valid to cancer therapy, which demands that more nanoparticles are located inside the cell. However, previous intracellular hyperthermia should develop special materials with the aim to improve adsorption and accumulation of magnetic materials into the tumor cells, such as magnetite cationic liposomes¹. But there is a certain degree of difficulty in the design and production of the magnetic materials. Nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs) has been reported as a novel technique to create large transmembrane potentials across membranes² and nanopores in plasma membranes as well as in intracellular membranes³, which may be a new approach to make easy-to-synthesized nanoparticles incorporated into the cell. In this study, we employed nsPEFs to treat the Hela cells before magnetic fluid hyperthermia treatment. The Prussian blue staining results has proved that significant cellular uptake of nanoparticles by Hela cells after nsPEFs exposure, while much fewer nanoparticles were incorporated into Hela cells without nsPEFs exposure. The hyperthermia results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the combination of nsPEFs and magnetic fluid hyperthermia in Hela cancer therapy. In conclusion, nsPEFs could provide a valuable tool to the hyperthermia therapy.