Stabilizing the cold plasma-stimulated medium by regulating medium's composition

Sci Rep. 2016 May 13:6:26016. doi: 10.1038/srep26016.

Abstract

Over past several years, the cold plasma-stimulated medium (PSM) has shown its remarkable anti-cancer capacity in par with the direct cold plasma irradiation on cancer cells or tumor tissues. Independent of the cold plasma device, PSM has noticeable advantage of being a flexible platform in cancer treatment. Currently, the largest disadvantage of PSM is its degradation during the storage over a wide temperature range. So far, to stabilize PSM, it must be remained frozen at -80 °C. In this study, we first reveal that the degradation of PSM is mainly due to the reaction between the reactive species and specific amino acids; mainly cysteine and methionine in medium. Based on this finding, both H2O2 in PSM and the anti-cancer capacity of PSM can be significantly stabilized during the storage at 8 °C and -25 °C for at least 3 days by using phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and cysteine/methionine-free Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM). In addition, we demonstrate that adding a tyrosine derivative, 3-Nitro-L-tyrosine, into DMEM can mitigate the degradation of PSM at 8 °C during 3 days of storage. This study provides a solid foundation for the future anti-cancer application of PSM.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents*
  • Culture Media / chemistry
  • Culture Media / radiation effects
  • Cysteine / chemistry
  • Free Radicals / chemistry
  • Freezing
  • Helium*
  • Humans
  • Hydrogen Peroxide / chemistry
  • Methionine / chemistry
  • Neoplasms / therapy*
  • Radiation
  • Tyrosine / analogs & derivatives
  • Tyrosine / metabolism

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Culture Media
  • Free Radicals
  • Helium
  • 3-nitrotyrosine
  • Tyrosine
  • Methionine
  • Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Cysteine