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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Non-thermal Plasma Induces Apoptosis in Melanoma Cells via Production of Intracellular Reactive Oxygen Species

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This article was retracted on 12 January 2013

Abstract

Non-thermal atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma may provide a novel approach to treat malignancies via induction of apoptosis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential of DBD plasma to induce apoptosis in melanoma cells. Melanoma cells were exposed to plasma at doses that did not induce necrosis, and cell viability and apoptotic activity were evaluated by Trypan blue exclusion test, Annexin-V/PI staining, caspase-3 cleavage, and TUNEL® analysis. Trypan blue staining revealed that non-thermal plasma treatment significantly decreased the viability of cells in a dose-dependent manner 3 and 24 h after plasma treatment. Annexin-V/PI staining revealed a significant increase in apoptosis in plasma-treated cells at 24, 48, and 72 h post-treatment (p < 0.001). Caspase-3 cleavage was observed 48 h post-plasma treatment at a dose of 15 J/cm2. TUNEL® analysis of plasma-treated cells demonstrated an increase in apoptosis at 48 and 72 h post-treatment (p < 0.001) at a dose of 15 J/cm2. Pre-treatment with N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC), an intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenger, significantly decreased apoptosis in plasma-treated cells at 5 and 15 J/cm2. Plasma treatment induces apoptosis in melanoma cells through a pathway that appears to be dependent on production of intracellular ROS. DBD plasma production of intracellular ROS leads to dose-dependent DNA damage in melanoma cells, detected by γ-H2AX, which was completely abrogated by pre-treating cells with ROS scavenger, NAC. Plasma-induced DNA damage in turn may lead to the observed plasma-induced apoptosis. Since plasma is non-thermal, it may be used to selectively treat malignancies.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Monica Jost for her help and guidance with the TUNEL assay and Dr. Christian Sell for allowing us to use his flow cytometer to carry out the Annexin-V/PI assay.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19102, USA

    Rachel Sensenig, Ekaterina Cerchar, Alexey Shereshevsky, Erica Podolsky & Ari D. Brooks

  2. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Sameer Kalghatgi & Gary Friedman

  3. School of Biomedical Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Gregory Fridman & Krishna Priya Arjunan

  4. Molecular Biology and Biochem, College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19102, USA

    Behzad Torabi & Jane Azizkhan-Clifford

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Alexander Fridman

  6. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Centre for Advanced Biotechnology, Boston University, ERB 301, 44 Cummington St, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Sameer Kalghatgi

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  1. Rachel Sensenig
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Correspondence to Sameer Kalghatgi.

Additional information

Associate Editor Bahman Anvari oversaw the review of this article.

The first two authors have contributed equally to this work.

A retraction note to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10439-013-0740-7.

This article is being retracted due to the discovery of identical data in the following publication by Fridman et al.: (Plasma Chem Plasma Process (2007) 27:163-176; DOI: 10.1007/s11090-007-9048-4).

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10439-013-0740-7.

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Sensenig, R., Kalghatgi, S., Cerchar, E. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Non-thermal Plasma Induces Apoptosis in Melanoma Cells via Production of Intracellular Reactive Oxygen Species. Ann Biomed Eng 39, 674–687 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-010-0197-x

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