Investigation of frequency response of apoptosis induction to budding yeast by burst pulse electric field for cancer treatment

Side effects have become a problem with cancer treatment technology. Therefore, Pulsed power technology attracts attention as a cancer treatment which may little have side effects. Applying a high electric field with nanosecond duration time on cancer cells can cause apoptosis in it. We investigated the influence on a cell by changing the frequency element of pulse electric field in an experiment. Burst pulse with single frequency was used for the experiment. Propidium iodide (PI) and Annexin-V of fluorescent stain has been used for detecting of apoptosis and necrosis for frequencies. The difference in PI and Annexin-V fluorescence staining was investigated at low frequencies and high frequencies. As a preliminary step, we have used a budding yeast, that is an eukaryotic cell, as a model organism of the cancer cell. As the result, it was shown that the apoptosis has been induced to the cells by the pulsed electric field at the frequency of 70 MHz. The cell death by necrosis has been occurred by the pulsed electric field at the frequency of 2 MHz to 45 MHz. The rate of the cell death decreases with heightening of the frequency.