Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Publication Details

Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, 2018, 18, 1-9

DOI: 10.2174/1871520617666170801110517

Abstract

Abstract: The use of plasma-activated liquids such as PBS, medium or simply plasma-activated water (PAW) has been receiving increasing attention for applications in cancer treatments. Amongst the reactive species contained in these solutions, hydrogen peroxide appears to play a pivotal role in causing cytotoxic effects. While H2O2 concentrations can be correlated with reduced cell viability and growth and used as an indicator of the potential efficacy of a plasma-activated water, comparisons to standard H2O2 kill curves demonstrate a potency in PAW which exceeds H2O2 associated toxicity, indicating that other plasma-generated species play an important role. Using a high-voltage dielectric barrier atmospheric cold plasma (DBD-ACP) system, we demonstrate the generation of plasma-activated water with high cytotoxic potential and good storage stability. The potency of the activated solutions can be modulated using system or process characteristics such as voltage level, treatment time and post-treatment storage time and target-related characteristics such as surface to volume ratio. All of these parameters were found to impact cell viability in a hydrogen peroxide concentration; correlated manner. The susceptibility of two cancer cell lines to PAW was similar to that observed for two non-cancer cell lines and the toxicity of plasma-activated water exceeded that of the corresponding hydrogen peroxide concentrations. This study examines the role of H2O2 in PAW-mediated cytotoxic effects on different mammalian cell lines and investigates the effects beyond H2O2 employing a set-up where short-lived reactive species can be discounted and activated liquids with long-term stability are generated. Here we investigate the cytotoxic mediators generated in water specific to high-voltage DBD-ACP.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2174/1871520617666170801110517

Funder

Science Foundation Ireland


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