Viability Reduction of Melanoma Cells by Plasma Jet via Inducing G1/S and G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest and Cell Apoptosis

This paper is aimed to investigate the inhibition effect and mechanism of low-temperature plasma (LTP) on melanoma cells. An argon atmospheric pressure plasma jet is used to generate LTP for the treatment of B16 murine melanoma cells cultured in vitro. LTP treatment time intervals are set as 5, 10, 15, and 20 s, respectively. After being treated with LTP, cell viability, cell apoptosis, cell cycle distribution, and cycle-related proteins expression of melanoma cells are, respectively, measured. It is found that, compared with the control cells, treatment of melanoma cells with 10, 15, and 20 s of plasma, result in a significant reduction in cell viability. Furthermore, investigation demonstrates that LTP may reduce cell viability of melanoma cells via inducing G1/S and G2/M cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis, and alteration of cell cycle is due to down-modulation of the expression of CyclinB1 and CyclinD1 protein induced by LTP.