Biological effect of paramecium in diffused ultrasonic fields

Since the cell structure or biophysical reaction includes in the interaction between ultrasound and living matter. When multi-cell creature is exposed to ultrasound, this reaction will lead the biological effect becomes complex. Therefore, in this paper, a single cell creature is chosen to study the biological effects induced by ultrasound exposure. The paramecium, which possesses many features typical of higher-order animal cells, was considered an appropriate choice for this study. The ability shown by ultrasound in promoting and/or accelerating many reactions has been shown to be a useful field. The growth phase of paramecium by using the ultrasound irradiation is an important parameter in this study. In our experiment, the exponential and stationary phases were employed. Three important factors must be taken into account when an ultrasonic biological reaction is investigated: the medium system, the bubbles' field, and the acoustic field. The medium system involves the physical parameters of the medium field. The bubbles' field includes the reacting bubble size of the liquid and the resonance frequency of the reaction bubbles. The oscillation of the cells in response to the ultrasound radiation is simulated using Rayleigh-Plesset's bubble activation theory. The resonance frequency of the unicellular creature is then calculated. The acoustic field is about using the diffuse field theory of Sabine to create a uniform sound field for the radiation experiment. The resonance frequency of the paramecium vacuole is among 0.54-1.09 MHz. When the 0.25 and 0.5 MHz frequencies of ultrasound was irradiated in the stationary phase of the paramecium, the relative growth rate was about 20% lower than that of unexposed sample. Therefore, the phenomenon of inhibition and destruction appeared during irradiation. The exponential phase of the paramecium samples appear to be different when irradiated with 1 MHz ultrasound. As can be seen in the results, the maximum relative growth rate was increasing 18% with 1 MHz ultrasound exposure.