Perforate on CHO cell membranes induced by electromagnetic pulses irradiation observed by atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to visualize the morphological change on the surface of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell membranes before and after electromagnetic pulses (EMP) irradiation.
The results show that there were different sizes and shapes of membrane perforate (width ranging from 0.39 - 0.66 m; depth of 392.95 nm) after 200 pulses of EMP irradiation at 400 kV/m. The results suggested that EMP irradiation can directly cause CHO cell membranes to perforate. The numbers of cell membrane perforates increased with an increase in applied EMP field intensity and an increase in the number of EMP pulses. EMP induced membrane perforate may play a very important role in EMP
biological effects.