High-intensity pulse magnetic field promotes Escherichia coli division by affecting glucose metabolism

The biological effects of magnetic field (MF) have been studied and applied in medicine over the past four decades. However, high-intensity pulse magnetic field (HI-PMF), which may exert stronger biological effects in a shorter time, is rarely studied. Herein, this study aims to investigate the biological effects of 2.5 T HI-PMF on Escherichia coli and the consequent physiological alterations. After being treated by HI-PMF, a notable increase in intracellular NADH/NAD+ ratio was observed, accompanied by an enhanced survival rate. Transcriptome analysis revealed significant changes in genes associated with glycolysis, TCA cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, suggesting that HI-PMF induces an increase in glucose metabolism. Interestingly, the decreased intracellular glucose concentration could alleviate the inhibition of cell division, which was identified as the reason for the increased survival rate after being treated by HI-PMF. Conversely, low intracellular glucose level led to cell death under HI-PMF. Therefore, the results suggest that HI-PMF treatment promotes cellular glucose metabolism and further influences cell survival depending on intracellular glucose concentrations. Overall design: To invesitage the influence of 2.5 T HI-PMF on E. coli, we transformed a endogenous fluorescence probe SoNar to E. coli and observed its changes. Then we performed gene expression profiling analysis using data from RNA-seq from cells with or without HI-PMF treatment.