A meaningful attempt: Applying dielectric barrier discharge plasma to induce apoptosis of MDA-MB-231 cells via regulating HIF-1α/VEGFA expression

Abstract

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is regarded as one of the most refractory clinical disease due to lacking effective drug-targets. Therefore, this study is aim to explore the effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are produced by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma and can go into cell without special targets, on MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro. The results showed that plasma treatment for 120 s could significantly decrease the cell viability and increase the intracellular ROS content of MDA-MB-321 cells as compared with 0 s and 60 s. Furthermore, the expression of gene and related protein of HIF-1α and VEGFA were both down-regulated by plasma treatment for 120 s. Taken together, our study presented a promising strategy to decontaminate MDA-MB-231 cells through inducing cell apoptosis by DBD device.