Characterization of Stem Cells Response to Bipolar Microsecond Pulses Electric Stimulation

Abstract

In the tissue regeneration field, stem cell transplantation and the control of their differentiation represent a promising therapeutic strategy. The second aspect can be achieved using electrical stimulation.
 This study aims to characterize the effect of a microsecond electrical stimulation on MSCs and iNSCs, in the context of the RISEUP FET-OPEN project (n. 964562) that seeks to control these cells differentiation for the spinal cord injury treatments.
 Here, the effect of a specific microsecond electric pulses stimulation, characterized by bipolar pulses of 100 µs + 100 µs, delivered for 30 minutes at an intensity of 250 V/cm, on i) cell proliferation, ii) cell cycle, iii) gene expression and iv) apoptosis was evaluated.
 Results show that the stimulation does not affect cell proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis, but induced some variations in gene expression, in particular in EGR1, FOS, and POU5F1. These ob-servations led us to deeply investigate the cell proliferation until 72h from the stimulation observing an increase in the iNSCs. 
 The main outcome of this study is that the chosen stimulation protocol is safe and not toxic for MSCs and iNSCs. The observed variations in the gene expression need to be deeply investigated to assess the molecular mechanisms involved.