Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Nanoscale. 2019 Jan 17;11(3):1123-1130. doi: 10.1039/c8nr08451c.
Nowadays, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) that contains lots of active free radicals has tremendous potential applications in biomedical engineering, and target delivery of a controllable dose of plasma gas is highly desired in clinical use. In this conceptual study, we developed a novel microbubble loaded by plasma gas and proposed an ultrasound-triggered strategy for the ultrasound-triggered release of free radicals from the microbubbles. The plasma microbubbles (PMBs) were fabricated by mixing plasma gas in the core of the surfactant microbubbles by a modified emulsification process. The resulting PMBs with an average size of 2.54 ± 2.28 μm were successfully fabricated using the proposed approach and the experimental result showed that PMBs exhibited a satisfactory ability to meet the requirement of ultrasound contrast-enhanced imaging. Furthermore, we depicted that ultrasound induced PMB destruction to release the plasma gas and PMBs with ultrasound stimulation could significantly improve the concentration of nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide compared with the control group. In addition, Dil acting as a model drug was loaded into the PMBs and an in vitro cell experiment showed that Dil and plasma gas could be released from PMBs and internalized by PIEC cells with ultrasound mediation. Our experimental results showed that ultrasound induced PMB destruction could successfully release many active free radicals in plasma gas, including nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide. The developed novel microbubbles demonstrated the technical potential of plasma gas loaded MBs for disease diagnostics and therapy with ultrasound imaging guidance.
现如今，含有大量活性自由基的冷态大气压等离子体（CAP）在生物医学工程中有巨大的应用潜力，在临床应用中，人们非常希望能对可控剂量的等离子体气体进行靶向输送。在本概念性研究中，我们开发了一种新型的载气等离子体微泡，并提出了一种超声触发策略，用于从微泡中释放自由基。通过改良的乳化工艺，将等离子体气体混合到表面活性剂微泡的核心中，从而制备出等离子体微泡（PMBs）。采用所提出的方法成功制备了平均粒径为 2.54 ± 2.28 μm 的 PMBs，实验结果表明 PMBs 具有令人满意的能力，能够满足超声对比增强成像的要求。此外，我们描述了超声诱导 PMB 破坏以释放等离子体气体，并且与对照组相比，PMBs 在超声刺激下可以显著提高一氧化氮和过氧化氢的浓度。此外，将 Dil 作为模型药物加载到 PMBs 中，体外细胞实验表明，在超声介导下，Dil 和等离子体气体可以从 PMBs 中释放出来并被 PIEC 细胞内化。我们的实验结果表明，超声诱导的 PMB 破坏可以成功地从等离子体气体中释放出许多活性自由基，包括一氧化氮和过氧化氢。所开发的新型微泡展示了载气 MBs 在超声成像引导下用于疾病诊断和治疗的技术潜力。
