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The Production of Plasma Activated Water in Controlled Ambient Gases and its Impact on Cancer Cell Viability

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Abstract

The present study investigated the effect of plasma-produced reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen (RNS) species on cancer cell viability. Reactive species were generated in deionized water by using an atmospheric pressure Ar plasma jet within the controlled ambient gases (air, O2 or N2), which allowed the production of plasma-activated water containing only ROS (e.g. O3, H2O2) or both ROS and RNS (e.g. H2O2, NO2–, NO3–). A considerable amount of H2O2 was produced in all ambient gases, and its generation rate was highest in N2 and lowest in O2. The latter was connected with a H2O2 precursor, OH, efficient quenching in O2 ambient gas. Small quantities of NO2– were generated during short (< 5 min) plasma treatments in ambient air and N2. The highest amount of NO3– was produced in N2 ambient gas. Ozone was detected only in the case of O2 environment. Cell viability studies were carried out by utilizing two cancer cell lines: 4T1 (breast cancer) and PPC-1 (prostate cancer). The results of the colorimetric succinate dehydrogenase activity assay showed that the studied cell lines had a similar sensitivity to the plasma activated medium. The impact of medium produced in the O2 ambient environment was determined by H2O2 content. The equivalent amount of H2O2 in the plasma activated medium produced in the N2 ambient environment caused an almost two-fold higher viability than in the case of the O2 ambient gas. It is proposed that this was due to the cellular proliferation enhancing effect of NH3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Indrek Renge for valuable discussions on chemistry in the liquid phase. The present study was supported by Estonian Science Agency Grant no PUT1432.

Funding

The study was supported by Estonian Science Agency Grant no PUT1432.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Ravila str. 19, 50411, Tartu, Estonia

    Sirli Raud, Tambet Teesalu & Eero Vasar

  2. Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, W. Ostwaldi str. 1, 50411, Tartu, Estonia

    Jüri Raud, Indrek Jõgi, Carl-Thomas Piller, Toomas Plank & Rasmus Talviste

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Contributions

S.R., J.R. and I.J. contributed to the study conception and design. Experiments and data analysis were conducted by S.R., J.R. and C-T. P. S.R. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Sirli Raud.

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Raud, S., Raud, J., Jõgi, I. et al. The Production of Plasma Activated Water in Controlled Ambient Gases and its Impact on Cancer Cell Viability. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 41, 1381–1395 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11090-021-10183-6

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