Comparison of the anticancer effects between helium plasma jets and electrochemical treatment (EChT)

Abstract

Cold atmospheric plasma, a promising technology for cancer therapy, can simultaneously induce electrochemistry, which has been widely demonstrated to be effective against cancer. Herein, the anticancer effects of direct current plasma jets and electrochemical circuit are comparatively studied with similar topological structures and average currents. The cell inactivation patterns formed by plasma and electrochemical treatment (EChT) are disparate, and the inactivation is mainly caused by the emission of charged species, helium flow, in situ OH radical production, or local alkalization. The culture medium treated by EChT exerted no sustained anticancer effect, whereas the medium treated by plasma could maintain a strong effect due to the production of more reactive species, suggesting that the electrochemistry does not dominate the plasma inactivation of cancer cells.

Cellular response to plasma-generated electrical and chemical stimulation of equal electricity

“…Speciation analysis clarified that the concentrations of nitrogen oxides and H 2 O 2 are low to kill the cells in the cases of POS and NEG for 10 min-treatment and NEG for 1 h-treatment because the viability against 6.8 mg l −1 of H 2 O 2 for 2 days treatment is around 80% [34] for HT-1080 cells. Therefore other short-lived chemical species [25,26] is not cytotoxic [21]. On the other hand, we have also reported that the cellular responses based on the gene expressions are the same between the plasma-treated culture medium and the H 2 O 2 -added culture medium when the H 2 O 2 concentration is 0.3 mM which leads to kill the cells [33].…”

“…The effects of electrical stimuli with chemical factors of plasma on cell responses have been previously investigated [25], and the cellular effect of polarities of the plasma was also reported [26]. We have attempted to more strictly discriminate the effect of nanosecond pulsed currents from those of chemical factors on cell responses and showed that nanosecond pulsed currents promote cell elongation and migration [23,24].…”

Ionization process and distinctive characteristic of atmospheric pressure cold plasma jet driven resonantly by microwave pulses

“…Atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs) have attracted much more applications such as plasma ignition and combustion, material surface modification, and plasma medical treatment [1][2][3][4]. Obviously, different application scenarios require different parameters of APPJs [5,6].…”