Biomedical applications of plasma-activated solutions

We have previously developed plasma-activated medium (PAM) and plasma-activated Ringer’s lactate solution (PAL). We have identified some components including 2,3-dimetyl tartrate, glyoxylate, pyruvate, formate, and acetate in PAL using NMR and mass spectrometry analysis. We further found that 2,3-dimetyl tartrate exhibited selective killing effect on cancer cells against normal cells, glyoxylate exhibited cytotoxicity on both cancer and normal cells, while pyruvate, formate, and acetate did not exhibit cytotoxicity. Microarray analysis of PAM-treated glioblastoma cells revealed that PAM induced oxidative stress-dependent cell death through the GADD45 signal transduction pathway. Meanwhile, PAL did not activate GADD45 signal transduction pathway on the glioblastoma cells, which suggest that PAL induced cell death through different intracellular molecular mechanisms. We further performed microarray analysis of PAL-treated glioblastoma cells, and we found that PAL upregulated histone cluster genes. In this meeting, we will report our progress in elucidating intracellular molecular mechanisms of selective killing of cancer cells by plasma-activated solutions.