Atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) as a new powerful mutagenesis tool.

Developing rapid and diverse microbial mutation tool is of importance to strain modification. In this review, a new mutagenesis method for microbial mutation breeding using the radio-frequency atmospheric-pressure glow discharge (RF APGD) plasma jets is summarized. Based on the experimental study, the helium RF APGD plasma jet has been found to be able to change the DNA sequences significantly, indicating that the RF APGD plasma jet would be a powerful tool for the microbial mutagenesis with its outstanding features, such as the low and controllable gas temperatures, abundant chemically reactive species, rapid mutation, high operation flexibility, etc. Then, with the RF APGD plasma generator as the core component, a mutation machine named as atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) mutation system has been developed and successfully employed for the mutation breeding of more than 40 kinds of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and microalgae. Finally, the prospect of the ARTP mutagenesis is discussed.