Induction apoptosis and G2/M phase cell cycle arrest by non-thermal plasma in human osteosarcoma MG-63 cell line

Abstract

Osteosarcoma is a malignant bone tumor that develops in the osteoblast cells that form the outer covering of bone. It is the most frequent malignant bone tumor found at 10-14 years and at >65 years of age. Atmospheric pressure plasma has advantages of high density and rich chemical agents without elevation of the substrate temperature. These non-equilibrium characteristics show promising applications in the biomedical field, opening a new research area called “Plasma Medicine”, which includes sterilization, coagulation, wound healing, and cancer treatment. However, the mechanism of apoptosis caused by plasma treatment in osteosarcoma is not well understood. In this study, the researchers show that microwave plasma causes selective cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in osteosarcoma cells in vitro. An inhabitation of cell growth of microwave plasma showed that this plasma has selective cytotoxic effects on MG-63 cells in comparison to hFOB 1.19 cells. Also, the resesearchers observed that microwave plasma treatmenst significantly showed disruption and aggregation of F-actin. The results demonstrated that treatment of MG-63 cells with microwave plasma induced cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase, using flow cytometry and western blot assay. To detect PARP and DFF-45 cleavage or a decrease as a result of caspase-3 activation, MG-63 cells were treated either with various times of microwave plasma. The research studies demonstrated that microwave plasma induced G2/M cell phase arrest and triggered apoptosis.