Dose-controlled low-intensity pulsed ultrasound and pulsed electromagnetic fields stimulations modulate inflammation in human macrophages

In this work, we stimulated M0-like and M1-like macrophages (obtained from the THP-1 cell line) with low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) and pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) to induce beneficial anti-inflammatory effects in terms of gene expression and cytokine release. The results show a significant reduction of some pro-inflammatory markers (IL-8, TNF-α after LIPUS stimulation and IL-1β, IL-8, TNF-α after PEMF stimulation) and a significant increase of anti-inflammatory markers (IL-10 after LIPUS and IL-10, CD206 after PEMF). These results show the potential of LIPUS and PEMF for possible future clinical translation, in clinical settings in which decreasing inflammation has a crucial role to enable therapy efficacy.