Molecular gyroscopes and biological effects of weak ELF magnetic fields

Extremely-low-frequency magnetic fields are known to affect biological systems. In many cases, biological effects display `windows' in biologically effective parameters of the magnetic fields: most dramatic is the fact that relatively intense magnetic fields sometimes do not cause appreciable effect, while smaller fields of the order of 10--100 $\mu$T do. Linear resonant physical processes do not explain frequency windows in this case. Amplitude window phenomena suggest a nonlinear physical mechanism. Such a nonlinear mechanism has been proposed recently to explain those `windows'. It considers quantum-interference effects on protein-bound substrate ions. Magnetic fields cause an interference of ion quantum states and change the probability of ion-protein dissociation. This ion-interference mechanism predicts specific magnetic-field frequency and amplitude windows within which biological effects occur. It agrees with a lot of experiments. However, according to the mechanism, the lifetime $\Gamma^{-1}$ of ion quantum states within a protein cavity should be of unrealistic value, more than 0.01 s for frequency band 10--100 Hz. In this paper, a biophysical mechanism has been proposed that (i) retains the attractive features of the ion interference mechanism and (ii) uses the principles of gyroscopic motion and removes the necessity to postulate large lifetimes. The mechanism considers dynamics of the density matrix of the molecular groups, which are attached to the walls of protein cavities by two covalent bonds, i.e., molecular gyroscopes. Numerical computations have shown almost free rotations of the molecular gyros. The relaxation time due to van der Waals forces was about 0.01 s for the cavity size of 28 angstr\"{o}ms.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Stochastic Dynamics of Magnetosomes in Cytoskeleton

Rotations of microscopic magnetic particles, magnetosomes, embedded into the cytoskeleton and subjected to the influence of an ac magnetic field and thermal noise are considered. Magnetosome dynamics is shown to comply with the conditions of the stochastic resonance under not-too-tight constraints on the character of the particle's fastening. The excursion of regular rotations attains the value of order of radian that facilitates explaining the biological effects of low-frequency weak magnetic fields and geomagnetic fluctuations. Such 1-rad rotations are effectively controlled by slow magnetic field variations of the order of 200 nT.Comment: LaTeX2e, 7 pages with 3 figure

New mechanism of solution of the kTkT-problem in magnetobiology

The effect of ultralow-frequency or static magnetic and electric fields on biological processes is of huge interest for researchers due to the resonant change of the intensity of biochemical reactions although the energy in such fields is small. A simplified model to study the effect of the weak magnetic and electrical fields on fluctuation of the random ionic currents in blood and to solve the $k_BT$ problem in magnetobiology is suggested. The analytic expression for the kinetic energy of the molecules dissolved in certain liquid media is obtained. The values of the magnetic field leading to resonant effects in capillaries are estimated. The numerical estimates showed that the resonant values of the energy of molecular in the capillaries and aorta are different: under identical conditions a molecule of the aorta gets $10^{-9}$ times less energy than the molecules in blood capillaries. So the capillaries are very sensitive to the resonant effect, with an approach to the resonant value of the magnetic field strength, the average energy of the molecule localized in the capillary is increased by several orders of magnitude as compared to its thermal energy, this value of the energy is sufficient for the deterioration of the chemical bonds.Comment: 10 pages, Accepted to the Journal Central European Journal of Physic

Electroactive smart materials: novel tools for tailoring bacteria behavior and fight antimicrobial resistance

Despite being very simple organisms, bacteria possess an outstanding ability to adapt to different environments. Their long evolutionary history, being exposed to vastly different physicochemical surroundings, allowed them to detect and respond to a wide range of signals including biochemical, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic ones. Taking into consideration their adapting mechanisms, it is expected that novel materials able to provide bacteria with specific stimuli in a biomimetic context may tailor their behavior and make them suitable for specific applications in terms of anti-microbial and pro-microbial approaches. This review maintains that electroactive smart materials will be a future approach to be explored in microbiology to obtain novel strategies for fighting the emergence of live threatening antibiotic resistance.This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) and by ERDF through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) in the framework of the Strategic Programs UID/FIS/04650/2019. This work was also supported by FCT through project LungChek ENMed/0049/2016. MF and EC thank FCT for the SFRH/BPD/121464/2016 and SFRH/BD/145455/2019 grant, respectively. Finally, the authors acknowledge funding by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through the project MAT201676039-C4-3-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) and from the Basque Government Industry and Education Departments under the ELKARTEK and PIBA (PIBA-2018-06) programs, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Electromagnetic Biostimulation of Living Cultures for Biotechnology, Biofuel and Bioenergy Applications

The surge of interest in bioenergy has been marked with increasing efforts in research and development to identify new sources of biomass and to incorporate cutting-edge biotechnology to improve efficiency and increase yields. It is evident that various microorganisms will play an integral role in the development of this newly emerging industry, such as yeast for ethanol and Escherichia coli for fine chemical fermentation. However, it appears that microalgae have become the most promising prospect for biomass production due to their ability to grow fast, produce large quantities of lipids, carbohydrates and proteins, thrive in poor quality waters, sequester and recycle carbon dioxide from industrial flue gases and remove pollutants from industrial, agricultural and municipal wastewaters. In an attempt to better understand and manipulate microorganisms for optimum production capacity, many researchers have investigated alternative methods for stimulating their growth and metabolic behavior. One such novel approach is the use of electromagnetic fields for the stimulation of growth and metabolic cascades and controlling biochemical pathways. An effort has been made in this review to consolidate the information on the current status of biostimulation research to enhance microbial growth and metabolism using electromagnetic fields. It summarizes information on the biostimulatory effects on growth and other biological processes to obtain insight regarding factors and dosages that lead to the stimulation and also what kind of processes have been reportedly affected. Diverse mechanistic theories and explanations for biological effects of electromagnetic fields on intra and extracellular environment have been discussed. The foundations of biophysical interactions such as bioelectromagnetic and biophotonic communication and organization within living systems are expounded with special consideration for spatiotemporal aspects of electromagnetic topology, leading to the potential of multipolar electromagnetic systems. The future direction for the use of biostimulation using bioelectromagnetic, biophotonic and electrochemical methods have been proposed for biotechnology industries in general with emphasis on an holistic biofuel system encompassing production of algal biomass, its processing and conversion to biofuel

Magnetic shielding accelerates the proliferation of human neuroblastoma cell by promoting G1-phase progression

Organisms have been exposed to the geomagnetic field (GMF) throughout evolutionary history. Exposure to the hypomagnetic field (HMF) by deep magnetic shielding has recently been suggested to have a negative effect on the structure and function of the central nervous system, particularly during early development. Although changes in cell growth and differentiation have been observed in the HMF, the effects of the HMF on cell cycle progression still remain unclear. Here we show that continuous HMF exposure significantly increases the proliferation of human neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) cells. The acceleration of proliferation results from a forward shift of the cell cycle in G1-phase. The G2/M-phase progression is not affected in the HMF. Our data is the first to demonstrate that the HMF can stimulate the proliferation of SH-SY5Y cells by promoting cell cycle progression in the G1-phase. This provides a novel way to study the mechanism of cells in response to changes of environmental magnetic field including the GMF