Zinc Sulphate Mediates the Stimulation of Cell Proliferation of Rat Adipose Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells Under High Intensity of EMF Exposure

Unlike the role of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in regenerative medicine, their application in cell therapy can be complicated by factors such as a reduction in the proliferation potential, senescent tendency of MSCs to expand, and an age-dependent decline in their number and functions. It was shown that there is an association between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and response to stress, cell proliferation, aging, and cell death. Furthermore, the zinc ion, as an essential trace element, was reported to be involved in the regulation of the growth and cell proliferation. In this report, ratadipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (rADSCs) were randomly divided into four groups-group I (control without any ZnSO4 and EMF); group II (ZnSO4 treatment without EMF exposed); group III (EMF exposed without ZnSO4); and group D dagger V (EMF exposed with ZnSO4)-to evaluate whether 0.14 mu g/ml Zinc sulfate (ZnSO4) could affect cell proliferation of rADSCs under extremely low frequency-electromagnetic field (ELF-EMF). The methyl thiazoltetrazolium (MTT) method was used to determine the cell proliferation of rADSCs following exposure to ELF-EMF in the presence of ZnSO4. The immunocytochemistry method as well as flow-cytometry was used to identify the cell surface markers. Next, oil red O, alizarin red, toluidine blue, and cresyl violet staining was done to evaluate the adipogenic, osteogenic, chondrogenic, and neurogenic differentiation of rADSCs as the pluripotent capacity of rADSCs, respectively. The results showed that an exposure to ELF-EMF caused a decrease in the proliferation of rADSCs. However, the ZnSO4 supplementation significantly increased the cell proliferation of ELF-EMF-exposed rADSCs. In addition, in the presence of 0.14 mu g/ml ZnSO4, rADSCs appeared to be growing faster than the control group and ZnSO4 significantly decreased the doubling time of ELF-EMF-exposed rADSCs. It seems that ZnSO4 would be a good element to induce the cell proliferation of ELF-EMF-exposed rADSCs.