Effects of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields on B16F10 cancer cells

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a method to inhibit B16F10 cancer cells using extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMFs) and to evaluate cell viability using MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay. The study examined the effect of a natural EMF resonance frequency (7.83 Hz) and a power line frequency (60 Hz) on B16F10 cancer cells for 24 and 48 h. The B16F10 cancer cells were also exposed to sweep frequencies in several sweep intervals to quantitatively analyze the viability of cancer cells. The results yielded a 17% inhibition rate under 7.83 Hz compared with that of the control group. Moreover, sweep frequencies in narrow intervals (7.83 ± 0.1 Hz for the step 0.05 Hz) caused an inhibition rate of 26.4%, and inhibitory effects decreased as frequency sweep intervals increased. These results indicate that a Schumann resonance frequency of 7.83 Hz can inhibit the growth of cancer cells and that using a specific frequency type can lead to more effective growth inhibition.

KEYWORDS:

• Extremely low-frequency
• electromagnetic field
• B16F10 cancer cells
• MTT assay
• Schumann resonance frequency

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by Ashaka International Inc. (9208151170915123005). The authors would also like to thank Technology Transfer and Business Incubation Center at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) for their technical support on industry–academic cooperation. The B16F10 cancer cells and cell culture equipment were provided by Professor’s Hao-Ven Wang laboratory at NCKU. We thank Professor Hao-Ven Wang for his support.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.