Study of the effects of 50 Hz homogeneous magnetic field on apoptosis and proliferation of SNU cells in vitro

The biological effects of magnetic field on SNU (human low differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma cell line) cells are studied in this paper. SNU cells were randomly divided into control groups and four treatment groups, the treatment groups were respectively irradiated by 50 Hz ferromagnetic field (0.097 T) 5 min., 30 min., 60 min., and 120 min. We observed the effects on proliferation and apoptosis of SNU cells after the treatment of magnetic field by flow cytometric (FCM) DNA analysis and electron microscope observation. The apoptosis rate in treatment groups are 4.75% ± 1.24%, 6.50% ± 0.61%, 9.20% ± 1.76% and 6.26% ± 2.95% respectively and significantly higher than that in control group. In the irradiation time range from 5 min to 60 min, there is a significant time-depended response correlation of apoptosis rate( r = 0.97, P < 0.01), but FCM results showed that the effects of 50 Hz homogeneous ferromagnetic field on the proliferation and distribution of cell cycle of SNU cells is not significant. We concluded that irradiation of 50 Hz homogeneous ferromagnetic field could promote apoptosis of SNU cells.