Department of Optical and Biophysical Systems, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 18221 Prague, Czech Republic.
International Magnetobiology Frontier Research Center, Hefei 230031, China.
Cells. 2021 Dec 28;11(1):81. doi: 10.3390/cells11010081.
The diffusion of biologically active molecules is a ubiquitous process, controlling many mechanisms and the characteristic time scales for pivotal processes in living cells. Here, we show how a high static magnetic field (MF) affects the diffusion of paramagnetic and diamagnetic species including oxygen, hemoglobin, and drugs. We derive and solve the equation describing diffusion of such biologically active molecules in the presence of an MF as well as reveal the underlying mechanism of the MF's effect on diffusion. We found that a high MF accelerates diffusion of diamagnetic species while slowing the diffusion of paramagnetic molecules in cell cytoplasm. When applied to oxygen and hemoglobin diffusion in red blood cells, our results suggest that an MF may significantly alter the gas exchange in an erythrocyte and cause swelling. Our prediction that the diffusion rate and characteristic time can be controlled by an MF opens new avenues for experimental studies foreseeing numerous biomedical applications.
生物活性分子的扩散是一种普遍存在的过程，控制着许多机制和活细胞中关键过程的特征时间尺度。在这里，我们展示了强静磁场（MF）如何影响包括氧、血红蛋白和药物在内的顺磁和抗磁物质的扩散。我们推导并求解了描述 MF 存在下这些生物活性分子扩散的方程，并揭示了 MF 对扩散影响的潜在机制。我们发现，强 MF 会加速抗磁物质的扩散，同时减缓细胞细胞质中顺磁分子的扩散。当应用于氧和血红蛋白在红细胞中的扩散时，我们的结果表明，MF 可能会显著改变红细胞中的气体交换并导致肿胀。我们的预测表明，扩散率和特征时间可以通过 MF 来控制，这为预见许多生物医学应用的实验研究开辟了新途径。
