Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields Induce Skeletal Muscle Cell Repair by Sustaining the Expression of Proteins Involved in the Response to Cellular Damage and Oxidative Stress

Author: Silvia Maiullari1, Antonella Cicirelli1, Angela Picerno1, Francesca Giannuzzi1, Loreto Gesualdo2, Angela Notarnicola3, Fabio Sallustio2, Biagio Moretti3
Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Department of Interdisciplinary Medicine, University of Bari &quot;Aldo Moro&quot;, 70124 Bari, Italy. <sup>2</sup> Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation Unit, Department of Precision and Regenerative Medicine and Ionian Area (DIMEPRE-J), University of Bari, Piazza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy. <sup>3</sup> Orthopaedic and Trauma Unit, Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience &quot;DiBraiN&quot;, University of Bari &quot;Aldo Moro&quot;, Piazza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy.
Conference/Journal: Int J Mol Sci
Date published: 2023 Nov 23
Other: Volume ID: 24 , Issue ID: 23 , Pages: 16631 , Special Notes: doi: 10.3390/ijms242316631. , Word Count: 254


Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) are employed as a non-invasive medicinal therapy, especially in the orthopedic field to stimulate bone regeneration. However, the effect of PEMF on skeletal muscle cells (SkMC) has been understudied. Here, we studied the potentiality of 1.5 mT PEMF to stimulate early regeneration of human SkMC. We showed that human SkMC stimulated with 1.5 mT PEMF for four hours repeated for two days can stimulate cell proliferation without inducing cell apoptosis or significant impairment of the metabolic activity. Interestingly, when we simulated physical damage of the muscle tissue by a scratch, we found that the same PEMF treatment can speed up the regenerative process, inducing a more complete cell migration to close the scratch and wound healing. Moreover, we investigated the molecular pattern induced by PEMF among 26 stress-related cell proteins. We found that the expression of 10 proteins increased after two consecutive days of PEMF stimulation for 4 h, and most of them were involved in response processes to oxidative stress. Among these proteins, we found that heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), which can promote muscle recovery, inhibits apoptosis and decreases inflammation in skeletal muscle, together with thioredoxin, paraoxonase, and superoxide dismutase (SOD2), which can also promote skeletal muscle regeneration following injury. Altogether, these data support the possibility of using PEMF to increase SkMC regeneration and, for the first time, suggest a possible molecular mechanism, which consists of sustaining the expression of antioxidant enzymes to control the important inflammatory and oxidative process occurring following muscle damage.

Keywords: PEMF; cellular damage; skeletal muscle cells.

PMID: 38068954 DOI: 10.3390/ijms242316631