Pulsed 3.5 GHz high power microwaves irradiation on physiological solution and their biological evaluation on human cell lines

Microwave (MW) radiation is increasingly being used for several biological applications. Many investigations have focused on understanding the potential influences of pulsed MW irradiation on biological solutions. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of 3.5 GHz pulsed MW radiation-irradiated liquid solutions on the survival of human cancer and normal cells. Different physiological solutions such as phosphate buffer saline, deionized water, and Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM) for cell culture growth were irradiated with pulsed MW radiation (45 shots with the energy of 1 mJ/shot). We then evaluated physiological effects such as cell viability, metabolic activity, mitochondrial membrane potential, cell cycle, and cell death in cells treated with MW-irradiated biological solutions. As MW irradiation with power density ~ 12 kW/cm2 mainly induces reactive nitrogen oxygen species in deionized water, it altered the cell cycle, membrane potential, and cell death rates in U373MG cells due to its high electric field ~ 11 kV/cm in water. Interestingly, MW-irradiated cell culture medium and phosphate-buffered saline did not alter the cellular viability and metabolic energy of cancer and normal cells without affecting the expression of genes responsible for cell death. Taken together, MW-irradiated water can alter cellular physiology noticeably, whereas irradiated media and buffered saline solutions induce negligible or irrelevant changes that do not affect cellular health.