Biological effects of intense THz pulses on human skin tissue models

We investigate the biological effects of intense THz pulses by measuring global differential gene expression profiles of THz-exposed human skin tissue models. The onset of significant differences in expression was found to be energy-dependent. Differentially expressed genes were subsequently analyzed in the context of known roles and interaction properties of the associated proteins. Protein signaling pathways that are often mutated/over-active in cancer (MAPK, RAS, and PI3K-AKT) were found to be significantly dysregulated, suggesting the potential for both tumor suppressing and oncogenic effects induced by exposures to intense THz pulses. Predictions are offered for the overall phenotypic endpoint that could result from the observed gene expression profiles, and potential targets for novel applications in cancer therapeutics are identified.