Abstract
Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has shown its potential in biomedical applications, such as wound healing, cancer treatment and bacterial disinfection. Recent experiments have provided evidence that CAP can also enhance the intracellular uptake of glucose molecules which is important in diabetes therapy. In this respect, it is essential to understand the underlying mechanisms of intracellular glucose uptake induced by CAP, which is still unclear. Hence, in this study we try to elucidate the possible mechanism of glucose uptake by cells by performing computer simulations. Specifically, we study the transport of glucose molecules through native and oxidized membranes. Our simulation results show that the free energy barrier for the permeation of glucose molecules across the membrane decreases upon increasing the degree of oxidized lipids in the membrane. This indicates that the glucose permeation rate into cells increases when the CAP oxidation level in the cell membrane is increased.
Highlights
Diabetes is a chronic disease related to an abnormal increase of the glucose level in the blood.Approximately 75% of glucose in the body is consumed by skeletal muscle cells that are stimulated by insulin [1,2]
The umbrella sampling (US) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations allowed us to elucidate the glucose translocation across the native and oxidized phospholipid bilayer (PLB) which gave insight into the possible mechanism of glucose ingress triggered by plasma oxidation of the cell membrane
We know from our previous studies that when lipid tails are oxidized, this eventually leads to a drop of the bilayer thickness [13,14]
Summary
Diabetes is a chronic disease related to an abnormal increase of the glucose level in the blood. Increases in the Ca2+ ion concentration as well as the uptake of middle-sized, membrane-impermeable molecules after direct CAP exposure were observed in [9] The authors attributed these effects to an increase in cell permeability caused by CAP-generated electric stimulation and the delivery of OH radicals into cells. We perform MD simulations to calculate the free energy barriers for glucose transport through oxidized and non-oxidized membranes Comparison of the latter shows the effect of CAP oxidation on the glucose transport across the membrane, which might explain the increased level of glucose uptake after the plasma treatment of cells, as observed experimentally
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