Single-cell-precision microplasma-induced cancer cell apoptosis

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 27;9(6):e101299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101299. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The issue of single-cell control has recently attracted enormous interest. However, in spite of the presently achievable intracellular-level physiological probing through bio-photonics, nano-probe-based, and some other techniques, the issue of inducing selective, single-cell-precision apoptosis, without affecting neighbouring cells remains essentially open. Here we resolve this issue and report on the effective single-cell-precision cancer cell treatment using the reactive chemistry of the localized corona-type plasma discharge around a needle-like electrode with the spot size ∼1 µm. When the electrode is positioned with the micrometer precision against a selected cell, a focused and highly-localized micro-plasma discharge induces apoptosis in the selected individual HepG2 and HeLa cancer cells only, without affecting any surrounding cells, even in small cell clusters. This is confirmed by the real-time monitoring of the morphological and structural changes at the cellular and cell nucleus levels after the plasma exposure.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Apoptosis / drug effects*
  • Electrodes
  • HeLa Cells
  • Hep G2 Cells
  • Humans
  • Plasma Gases / pharmacology*
  • Single-Cell Analysis / instrumentation
  • Single-Cell Analysis / methods*

Substances

  • Plasma Gases

Grants and funding

XL acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51077063, 51277087). KO acknowledges support from the ARC and the CSIRO OCE Science Leadership Scheme. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.