Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA.
School of Medicine and Health Science, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 16;10(1):11788. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68585-z.
Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a near room temperature ionized gas, has shown potential application in many branches of medicine, particularly in cancer treatment. In previous studies, the biological effect of CAP on cancer cells and other mammalian cells has been based solely on the chemical factors in CAP, particularly the reactive species. Therefore, plasma medicine has been regarded as a reactive species-based medicine, and the physical factors in CAP such as the thermal effect, ultraviolet irradiation, and electromagnetic effect have been regarded as ignorable factors. In this study, we investigated the effect of a physical CAP treatment on glioblastoma cells. For the first time, we demonstrated that the physical factors in CAP could reinstate the positive selectivity on CAP-treated astrocytes. The positive selectivity was a result of necrosis, a new cell death in glioblastoma cells characterized by the leak of bulk water from the cell membrane. The physically-based CAP treatment overcomed a large limitation of the traditional chemically based CAP treatment, which had complete dependence on the sensitivity of cells to reactive species. The physically-based CAP treatment is a potential non-invasive anti-tumor tool, which may have wide application for tumors located in deeper tissues.
冷等离体子体（CAP）是一种接近室温的离子化气体，已显示出在医学许多领域的应用潜力，特别是在癌症治疗方面。在以前的研究中，CAP 对癌细胞和其他哺乳动物细胞的生物学效应仅基于 CAP 中的化学因素，特别是活性物质。因此，等离子体医学被认为是一种基于活性物质的医学，而 CAP 中的物理因素，如热效应、紫外线辐射和电磁效应，则被认为是可以忽略的因素。在这项研究中，我们研究了物理 CAP 处理对神经胶质瘤细胞的影响。我们首次证明，CAP 的物理因素可以恢复 CAP 处理后的星形胶质细胞的正选择性。正选择性是由于坏死所致，坏死是神经胶质瘤细胞中一种新的细胞死亡方式，其特征是细胞膜内的大量水分渗漏。基于物理的 CAP 处理克服了传统基于化学的 CAP 处理的一个很大的局限性，即它完全依赖于细胞对活性物质的敏感性。基于物理的 CAP 处理是一种潜在的非侵入性抗肿瘤工具，可能广泛应用于位于更深组织中的肿瘤。
