Pulsed magnetic field accelerate proliferation and migration of cardiac microvascular endothelial cells

Heart failure is a disease with multifactorial causes. Recently it was established that reduction in vascular density promoted the progression from adaptive cardiac hypertrophy to heart failure, therefore, therapeutic angiogenesis may be a promising method for treating heart failure. Cardiac microvascular endothelial cells (CMECs) play a major role in cardiac angiogenesis. In the present study, we investigated the direct and indirect effect of pulsed magnetic field (PMF) on the proliferation and migration of CMECs. CMECs were isolated from adult Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat hearts. We found PMF with a frequency of 15 Hz and an intensity of 1.8 mT accelerated the proliferation and migration of CMECs and cardiac myocytes (CMs). Moreover, CMECs treated with PMF released 1.5-fold higher vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and 2-fold higher fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) when compared with PMF-free cells. In addition, CMs treated with PMF released twofold higher FGF-2 compared with PMF-free cells, but there was no change in VEGF levels. Those results suggested PMF has both a direct autocrine mitogenic and an indirect paracrine effect on CMECs proliferation and migration, and the effect of PMF on intercellular communication between CMECs and CMs was partially dependent on FGF-2, but independent on VEGF.