Destruction of Melanoma Cells by Cold Atmospheric Plasma in the Presence of Gold Nanoparticles

Document Type : Original Article(s)

Authors

1 PhD Candidate, Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

2 Professor, Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

3 Professor, Medical Physics Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

4 Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Nanotechnology, Applied Biophotonics Research Center, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

5 Associate Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

Background: Melanoma is one of the deadliest skin cancers because the effectiveness of common treatments is not impressive. Cold atmospheric plasma is considered a new solution in cancer treatment. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the synergistic effect of cold plasma in the presence of gold nanoparticles on melanoma cell lines.
Methods: In this study, helium based cold plasma in the presence of gold nanoparticles were used to treat melanoma cells. In this respect, after the synthesis of gold nanoparticles, their physicochemical properties were investigated. Then incubation time of gold nanoparticles was determined and the optimal concentration was determined after 24 hours of incubation using MTT test. Finally, cells were exposed to cold plasma radiation with and without gold nanoparticles at different times of 30, 60 and 90 s. The survival percentage of cells was evaluated 48 hours after cold plasma treatment.
Findings: Cold plasma treatment produces time-dependent toxic effects. The viability of cells treated with cold plasma in the presence of gold nanoparticles was significantly reduced compared to untreated cells. The greatest reduction in viability was observed in the 90 s cold plasma and 20 mg/mL concentration gold nanoparticle treatment groups.
Conclusion: This study approved anti-cancer effect of cold plasma on melanoma cells. In addition, it also showed that gold nanoparticles create a synergistic effect in plasma treatment.

Keywords

Main Subjects


  1. Mattiuzzi C, Lippi G. Current cancer epidemiology.
    J Epidemiol Glob Health 2019; 9(4): 217-22.
  2. Stoffels E, Sakiyama Y, Graves DB. Cold atmospheric plasma: Charged species and their interactions with cells and tissues. IEEE Trans Plasma Sci 2018; 36(4): 1441-57.
  3. Momeni S, Shanei A, Sazgarnia A, Attaran N, Aledavood SA. Evaluation of anti-cancer effect of cold atmospheric plasma as a new treatment and indocyanine green as a photosensitizer in inhibition of melanoma cell Line [in Persian]. J Isfahan Med Sch 2022; 40(669): 272-7.
  4. Hua D, Cai D, Ning M, Yu L, Zhang Z, Han P, et al. Cold atmospheric plasma selectively induces G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in AR-independent prostate cancer cells. J Cancer 2021; 12(19): 5977-86.
  5. Momeni S, Shanei A, Sazgarnia A, Attaran N, Aledavood SA. The synergistic effect of cold atmospheric plasma mediated gold nanoparticles conjugated with indocyanine green as an innovative approach to cooperation with radiotherapy. Cell J 2023; 25(1): 51-61.
  6. Favi PM, Gao M, Sepúlveda Arango LJ, Ospina SP, Morales M, Pavon JJ, et al. Shape and surface effects on the cytotoxicity of nanoparticles: Gold nanospheres versus gold nanostars. J Biomed Mater Res A 2015; 103(11): 3449-62.
  7. Shahmirani Z, Irani S, Atyabi SM, Mirpour S, Shadpour S, Ghorannevis M, et al. Effect of cold atmospheric pressure plasma and gold nanoparticles on cell viability. Annu Res Rev Biol 2018; 4(20): 3108-18.
  8. Cheng X, Murphy W, Recek N, Yan D, Cvelbar U, Vesel A, et al. Synergistic effect of gold nanoparticles and cold plasma on glioblastoma cancer therapy. J Phys D Appl Phys 2019; 47(33): 335402.
  9. Dong J, Carpinone PL, Pyrgiotakis G, Demokritou P,
    Moudgil BM. Synthesis of precision gold nanoparticles using Turkevich method. Kona 2020; 37: 224-32.
  10. Toosi MTB, Momeni S, Soleymanifard S, Gholamhosseinian H. Evaluation of dose calculation accuracy of Isogray treatment planning system in craniospinal radiotherapy. Iran J Med Phys 2018; 15(4): 231-6.
  11. Momeni S, Bahreyni Toosi MT, Anvari K, Gholamhosseinian H, Soleymanifard S. Comparing two radiotherapy techniques of whole central nervous system tumors, considering tumor and critical organs' dose provided by treatment planning system and direct measurement. J Cancer Res Ther 2020; 16(6): 1470-5.
  12. Elahi N, Kamali M, Baghersad MH. Recent biomedical applications of gold nanoparticles: A review. Talanta 2018;184: 537-56.
  13. Kalghatgi S, Friedman G, Fridman A, Clyne AM. Endothelial cell proliferation is enhanced by low dose non-thermal plasma through fibroblast growth factor-2 release. Ann Biomed Eng 2020; 38(3): 748-57.
  14. Kong MG, Keidar M, Ostrikov K. Plasmas meet nanoparticles-where synergies can advance the frontier of medicine. J Phys D Appl Phys 2011; 44(17): 174018.
  15. Cheng X, Sherman J, Murphy W, Ratovitski E, Canady J, Keidar M. The effect of tuning cold plasma composition on glioblastoma cell viability. PLoS One 2014; 9(5): e98652.