Engineering Commons^™

Cell Stimulation And Calcium Mobilization By Picosecond Electric Pulses, Iurii Semenov, Shu Xiao, Dongkoo Kang, Karl H. Schoenbach, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

We tested if picosecond electric pulses (psEP; 190 kV/cm, 500 ps at 50% height), which are much shorter than channel activation time, can activate voltage-gated (VG) channels. Cytosolic Ca²⁺ was monitored by Fura-2 ratiometric imaging in GH3 and NG108 cells (which express multiple types of VG calcium channels, VGCC), and in CHO cells (which express no VGCC). Trains of up to 100 psEP at 1 kHz elicited no response in CHO cells. However, even a single psEP significantly increased Ca²⁺ in both GH3 (by 114 +/- 48 nM) and NG108 cells (by 6 +/- 1.1 nM). Trains of …