Effects of atmospheric pressure plasma jet with floating electrode on murine melanoma and fibroblast cells

Atmospheric pressure cold plasma jets have been recently shown as a highly promising tool in certain cancer therapies. In this paper, an atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) with a one inner floating and two outer electrode configuration using helium gas for medical applications is developed. Subjected to a range of applied voltages with a frequency of 19.8 kHz at a fixed rate of gas flow (i.e., 3 l/min), electrical and optical characteristics of the APPJ are investigated. Compared with the device only with two outer electrodes, higher discharge current, longer jet, and more active species in the plasma plume at the same applied voltage together with the lower gas breakdown voltage can be achieved through embedding a floating inner electrode. Employing the APPJ with a floating electrode, the effects of identical plasma treatment time durations on murine melanoma cancer and normal fibroblast cells cultured in vitro are evaluated. The results of cell viability, cell apoptosis, and DNA damage detection show that the plasma can inactivate melanoma cells in a time-dependent manner from 10 s to 60 s compared with the control group (p < 0.05). However, for fibroblast cells compared with their control group, the plasma with treatment time from 30 s to 60 s can induce significant changes (p < 0.05), showing a less cytotoxic effect than that on melanoma cells at the same treatment time. The different basal reactive oxygen species level and antioxidant superoxide dismutase level of two kinds of cells may account for their different responses towards the identical plasma exposure.