Interrogating an in silico model to determine helium plasma jet and chemotherapy efficacy against B16F10 melanoma cells

Abstract

We developed an in silico approach to model B16F10 melanoma cell response to a helium atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) or/and doxorubicin drug (DOX). The in silico model is informed by relevant data from previously published in vitro experiments (cancer cell viability), providing detailed information on (i) cell population number (Ncell) development during incubation and (ii) probability values for apoptosis (%PApoptosis) and mitosis (%PMitosis) following cell subjection to the plasma-conditioned RPMI-1640 medium (PC-RPMI), DOX, and DOX combined with APPJ. When treating cancer cells with PC-RPMI and DOX separately, at the smallest plasma duration (dPlasma = 15 s) and DOX concentration (cDOX = 0.05 μM), only a small decline in Ncell, an increase in %PApoptosis, or/and a decrease in %PMitosis are measured with respect to the control conditions (non-treated cancer cells). However, cell cytotoxicity is increasingly enhanced with increasing dPlasma and cDOX up to 120 s and 0.5 μM, respectively. At those highest values studied in in silico, simulated %PApoptosis are significantly larger than %PMitosis, resulting in a severe decrease in Ncell compared to control in agreement with the corresponding in vitro experiments. Furthermore, cell treatments combining the smallest two cDOX (0.05 and 0.1 μM) with dPlasma = 15 s result in smaller Ncell, larger %PApoptosis, and lower %PMitosis compared to PC-RPMI and DOX effects alone. The present in silico model is particularly useful in the plasma (cancer) medicine field since it can effectively simulate and quantify responses of various cancers to APPJ or/and cancer drugs being strongly complementary to in vitro experiments.