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Cold atmospheric plasma attenuates skin cancer via ROS induced apoptosis

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Abstract

Background

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has been widely used in biomedical research, especially in vitro cancer therapy. Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is a malignant tumor originating from epidermal keratinocytes. However, the mechanism of CAP therapy on CSCC remains unclear.

Methods and results

The animal models of CSCC induced by 7,12-dimethylbenz(a) anthracene (DMBA)/12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) were constructed. For the CAP treatment group, after each TPA application, CAP was administered for 3 min twice weekly after drying. HE staining were used to detect the pathological status of tumor tissue in each group. The levels of PCNA, Bcl-2, Bax, MMP2 and MMP9 were evaluated by western blot and qPCR. TUNEL staining were used to detect apoptosis in tumor tissues. In vivo, serum samples were used for ELISA of total ROS. MTT assay was used to detect the viability of A431 cells. Western blot and qPCR were used to detect the levels of PCNA, Bcl-2, Bax, MMP2 and MMP9 in A431 cells. A431 cell proliferation was examined by colony formation assay. The proportions of apoptosis of A431 cells were detected by flow cytometry. Transwell assessed the ability of A431 cells migration and proliferation. We found that CAP could induce skin cancer cells apoptosis and inhibit the progress of skin cancer. Through experiments in vitro, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and CAP inhibited the proliferation and migration of A431 skin cancer cells while promoting apoptosis.

Conclusions

These evidences suggest the protective effect of CAP in CSCC, and CAP has the potential clinical application of CSCC.

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Data availability

All data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The study was supported by the fund from National Natural Science Foundation of China to Dong Wang and Guohua Ni (Grant number: 31800702, 12275317 and 11875295), Natural Science Research Project of Anhui Educational Committee to Dong Wang (Grant number: 2022AH050736), Qingdao Science and Technology Demonstration Project to Guohua Ni (Grant number: 23-7-8-smjk-2-nsh).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Plasma Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China

    Changqing Liu, Tao Sun, Ling Kong, Xinru Zhang & Guohua Ni

  2. University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Changqing Liu, Tao Sun & Ling Kong

  3. School of Basic Medical Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, China

    Jingjing Zha & Dong Wang

  4. Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Medical Physics and Technology, Hefei, 230031, China

    Xinru Zhang & Guohua Ni

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  1. Changqing Liu
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  2. Jingjing Zha
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  4. Ling Kong
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  5. Xinru Zhang
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  6. Dong Wang
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Contributions

CQL: Writing, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. JJZ: Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. TS: Investigation, Formal analysis. LK: Investigation, Data curation. XRZ: Writing-review & editing, Supervision, Formal analysis. DW: Writing-review & editing, Supervision, Formal analysis. GHN: Writing-review & editing, Supervision, Formal analysis, Conceptualization.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xinru Zhang, Dong Wang or Guohua Ni.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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The author declares that they have no competing interest.

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The Ethical Committee of Anhui Medical University approved this research.

Animal ethics

All animal experiments were performed according to protocols approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of Anhui Medical University (Approval number: LLSC20210791). All animals received humane care according to the criteria outlined in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals prepared by the National Academy of Sciences and published by the National Institutes of Health.

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Liu, C., Zha, J., Sun, T. et al. Cold atmospheric plasma attenuates skin cancer via ROS induced apoptosis. Mol Biol Rep 51, 518 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-024-09486-6

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