In Vitro Effects of low-energy ultrasound treatment on healthy lymphocytes, RBC cells, AML, and ALL cell lines

The study of biological effects of low-energy ultrasound and its applications is a rapidly expanding research area. Low energy ultrasound could be used as anti-tumoral therapy with or without the pharmacological combination even if the second situation has been scarcely investigated up to now. Very little information is available about the ultrasound effects on healthy red blood cells and lymphocytes. Here, we evaluated. in vitro. the bio-effects of the low-energy ultrasounds on red blood cells and PBMCs isolated from healthy donors as well as on two myeloid leukemia cell lines (OCI-AML-3 and MOLM-13) and lymphoblastic leukemia T-cell line (Jurkat). We analyzed different parameters, such as vitality, proliferation, mitochondrial membrane potential, and activation of specific markers on healthy lymphocytes as well as the vitality of RBCs and leukemia cell lines. Our data show that ultrasound treatment induces typical apoptotic alterations in leukemia cells, including alterations of mitochondrial membrane potential, loss of phosphatidylserine asymmetry, morphological changes, and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Overall, we demonstrated that lymphocytes vitality, proliferation/activation and cytotoxic functions are fully preserved after ultrasound treatment, on the contrary leukemia cell lines undergo apoptosis and stop to proliferate suggesting a possible approach for cancer therapy in blood malignancies.