Effects of In Vitro Electrical Stimulation on Enhancement and Suppression of Malignant Lymphoma Cell Proliferation

Abstract

The suppression and enhancement of proliferation of mouse EL4 lymphoma cells varied significantly when the cells were electrically stimulated within a narrow range of low-level direct current. With the use of platinum electrodes, the suppression characteristics were observed over a narrow range, or window, of direct currents centered at approximately 17 microA. Enhancement characteristics were observed over a broad range of low-level direct currents (approximately 0.1 to 10 microA). These results indicate that the proliferation of certain eukaryotic cells may be directly controlled by stimulation with low-level direct current.

In Vitro Response of Retinoblastoma, Lymphoma and Non-malignant Cells to Direct Current: Therapeutic Implications

“…With respect to cell proliferation using low-level direct current, a pronounced ªwindow of suppressionº was previously reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, for EL-4 malignant lymphoma cells, and in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, for EL-4 lymphoma and IL-6 hybridoma cells, within a certain narrow range of direct current [3,4]. This same ªwindowº effect also occurs with retinoblastoma cells (as shown in Figure 2) within the same narrow range of direct current.…”

“…Information on the analysis of the electrodes is contained in a previous Journal of the National Cancer Institute issue where the results of low-level direct current on malignant lymphoma cells were presented and discussed [3]. where population density for this study is expressed as cells per ml of medium.…”

“…A considerable amount of in vitro research activity has been undertaken to evaluate the effects of low-level direct electrical currents on morphology, maturation, expression and proliferation variations for certain types of electrically stimulated normal and malignant cells [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The increased use of electrotherapy in the treatment of cancer [7][8][9], diseases of the visual system [10][11][12] and other health problems [13,14] has pro-vided a number of motivating factors for research activities involving cellular response to electrical stimulation.…”

Phenomenology and Mechanisms of Electrochemical Treatment (ECT) of Tumors

“…Lyte and Coworkers 60 examined the effect of low level DC current on some mouse lymphoma cells; within a narrow current range (10-24 A), some inhibition of the cell proliferation was observed whereas an enhancement of cell proliferation was noted outside this current window. The data 60 thus appear somewhat contradictory and, in any case, were not interpreted as due to electrochemical effects although a vague relevance of this work to investigations of Nordenström [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] was implied and an electrochemical mechanism thus insinuated.…”

Evidence and Necessity for Biologically Closed Electric Circuits (BCEC) in Healing, Regulation and Oncology

“…Nordenstro È m's theories have inspired a considerable amount of in vitro research involving the response of normal cells and cancer cells to low level direct current densities [29][30][31][32]. The results show that the proliferation of cancer cells can be suppressed under the influence of a relatively narrow ¹windowª of direct current densities [30,31] or at certain dose levels (in Coulombs) [32]. The effectiveness of EChT in the treatment of cancer and hemangioma tumors appears to involve a variety of mechanisms at both the tumor level and the cellular level [28, 29±32].…”