The assessment of cold atmospheric plasma treatment of DNA in synthetic models of tissue fluid, tissue and cells

Szili, Endre J. and Gaur, Nishtha and Hong, Sung-Ha and Kurita, Hirofumi and Oh, Jun-Seok and Ito, Masafumi and Mizuno, Akira and Hatta, Akimitsu and Cowin, Allison J. and Graves, David B. and Short, Robert D (2017) The assessment of cold atmospheric plasma treatment of DNA in synthetic models of tissue fluid, tissue and cells. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 50 (27): 274001. ISSN 0022-3727

Abstract

There is a growing literature database that demonstrates the therapeutic potential of cold atmospheric plasma (herein referred to as plasma). Given the breadth of proposed applications (eg from teeth whitening to cancer therapy) and vast gamut of plasma devices being researched, it is timely to consider plasma interactions with specific components of the cell in more detail. Plasma can produce highly reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) such as the hydroxyl radical (OH•), peroxynitrite (ONOO−) and superoxide (O2-) that would readily modify essential biomolecules such as DNA. These modifications could in principle drive a wide range of biological processes. Against this possibility, the reported therapeutic action of plasmas are not underpinned by a particularly deep knowledge of the potential plasma-tissue,-cell or-biomolecule interactions.