Abstract
Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has been widely used in biomedicine during the last two decades. While direct plasma treatment has been reported to promote wound healing, its application can be uneven and inconvenient. In this study, we first activated water with a portable dielectric barrier discharge plasma device and evaluated the inactivation effect of plasma-activated water (PAW) on several kinds of bacteria that commonly infect wounds. The results show that PAW can effectively inactivate these bacteria. Then, we activated tap water and examined the efficacy of PAW on wound healing in a mouse model of full-thickness skin wounds. We found that wound healing in mice treated with PAW was significantly faster compared with the control group. Histological analysis of the skin tissue of mice wounds showed a significant reduction in the number of inflammatory cells in the PAW treatment group. To identify the possible mechanism by which PAW promotes wound healing, we analyzed changes in the profiles of wound bacteria after PAW treatment. The results show that PAW can significantly reduce the abundance of wound bacteria in the treatment group. The results of biochemical blood tests and histological analysis of major internal organs in the mice show that PAW had no obvious side effects. Taken together, these results indicate that PAW may be a new and effective method for promoting wound healing without side effects.
Highlights
Wounds can be caused in various ways, such as through blunt instrument injuries, scrapes, falls, and knife injuries
We evaluated the antibacterial effects of the immediate preparation of plasma-activated water (PAW), examining the effect produced on the healing of skin wounds in mice
We investigated the in vitro antibacterial effects of PAW on other bacteria (Escherichia coli, Salmonella paratyphi-B, and Staphylococcus aureus), in addition to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, using a colony counting assay as conducted by a third-party organization (Shaanxi Institute of Microbiology, Shaanxi, China)
Summary
Wounds can be caused in various ways, such as through blunt instrument injuries, scrapes, falls, and knife injuries. Wounds become infected by various microorganisms, which can lead to serious inflammation and significantly delay the wound healing process. Researchers have reported that plasma-activated water (PAW), which contains various ROS and RNS [40,41], produces similar biological effects to direct plasma treatment. A time delay exists between the preparation of PAW in the laboratory and the transfer to the animal center for plasma treatment of animals. This would lead to a decrease in ROS and RNS in PAW, especially for short-lived species and, a reduction in the therapeutic biological effects of PAW treatment. We examined whether PAW treatment had any side effects compared to the control group
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