Multivariable quantitative relation between cell viability and the exposure parameters of 9.33 GHz RF-EMP irradiation

ABSTRACT

Qualitative analysis of the influence of a certain exposure parameter is commonly performed in bioelectromagnetic studies. However, since the exposure condition requires the control of multiple parameters, the diverse results caused by different combinations of these parameters requires further quantitative study of the multivariable (exposure parameters)-bioeffect relation to identify the rule describing bioelectromagnetic effects. The present work investigated the relation between cell viability and the three main exposure parameters (electric intensity (E_s), pulse duration (τ) and pulse number (N)) of 9.33 GHz radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMP). Experiments showed that the inhibitory rate of cell viability (ρ) had a proportional relationship with E_s and exponential relationship with N; the equation is proposed to quantitatively describe the relation between the cell viability and these three exposure parameters. This equation can be used to predict the significance of a 9.33 GHz RF-EMP-induced bioeffect under the conditions E_s <10⁶ kV/m, N < 100, and 300 < τ < 750 ns, under which nonthermal bioeffects dominate for 9.33GHz RF-EMP exposure.

KEYWORDS:

• Electromagnetic pulses
• exposure parameters
• cell viability
• quantitative equation
• multivariable

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31600675) and National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program) (Grant No. 2011CB503701). We are grateful to Dr. Lin-Hua Jiang, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, UK, for his critical comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31600675] and the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program) [grant number 2011CB503701].