Effect of Free Radicals Induced by Ultrasonic Cavitation on Cell Killing

Summary The present study was undertaken to elucidate the mechanism of in vitro cell killing induced by 1·0 MHz continuous wave ultrasound at an intensity of 5·8 W/cm2. The chemical effects and mechanical effects arising from acoustic cavitation were determined by the amount of liberated iodine and the number of DNA double-strand breaks, respectively. The survival of mouse L cells immediately after irradiation was estimated by counting the number of cells which are not stained by trypan blue and the clonogenicity of surviving cells remaining immediately after irradiation was monitored by colony-forming ability. The effectiveness of the dissolved gases in liberating iodine was in the order O2 > Ar > N2 > N2O ∼ 0. However, the effect of dissolved gases on the yield of double-strand breaks of DNA and on the two kinds of end points of cell killing was in the order O2 = Ar = N2 > N2O ∼ 0. These results suggest that the different amounts of free radicals induced by ultrasound are not directly related to the ultrasonically induced cell killing. The presence of cysteamine (2 mmol dm−3) during sonication completely inhibited a decrease in clonogenicity of surviving cells, but did not inhibit that of cell survival immediately after sonication. These results suggest that the decrease of survival immediately after sonication is due to mechanical shear stress arising from cavitation, while the decrease of clonogenicity of the remaining surviving cells is due to free radicals induced by cavitation. The contribution of free radicals to total cell killing was estimated as about 1 per cent at the level of 95 per cent cell killing immediately after sonication.