Can modification of cell physiology and growth characteristics by static magnetic field have therapeutic applications?

There is continuing progress in studies of the effect of static magnetic field (SMF) on cell growth in vivo and in vitro. The evidence in the literature including our studies indicates that SMF exerts significant effects on some physiological functions of the cell and affects their growth pattern and morphometry. This prompts us to question as to whether these effects can have therapeutic use. In the present study we demonstrate that SMF is able to modulate cell growth and differentiation in myogenic cultured cells as demonstrated by increased accumulation of actin and myosin and formation of large multinucleated myotubes. SMF is also able to spatially orient skeletal muscle cells growing on cysteamine-coated gold. Such SMF effects may have significant practical applications in tissue engineering, in particular for culturing skeletal muscle cells on conductive surfaces that is required to develop electronic device-muscle junctions for experimental and medical applications. Furthermore, SMF-enhanced parallel orientation of myotubes is relevant to tissue engineering of a highly organized tissue such as skeletal muscle. In the present study we also show that SMF produces functional changes as well. Specifically, we observe that constitutive- and exogenous oxidant- induced phosphorylation of histone H2AX and activation of ATM-S1981, the reporters of DNA damage response in human leukemic TK6 cells, are attenuated by SMF. Also, in glioblastoma cells SMF is able to modulate radiation induced DNA damage as demonstrated by comet assay. If this protective effect of SMF on DNA damage is confirmed and there is absence of potential side effects, one may consider the use of SMF for treatment of degenerative diseases such as neurodegeneration and muscle wasting thereby introducing a new therapeutic modality in regenerative and inflammation medicine.