Synergistic Effects of Cold Atmospheric Plasma and Electric Pulses on Jurkat Cells

Both cold atmospheric pressure plasmas (CAPPs)
¹
and electric pulses (EPs)
²
have demonstrated potential for wound treatment, cancer therapy, and sterilization or sanitization of food and medical equipment. However, few studies have explored the potential synergies of combining EPs and CAPPs. One study assessed the impact of plasma exposure duration, EP field intensity, and order of EP and CAPP exposure for an argon plasma jet and nanosecond duration pulses on microorganisms
³
. A more detailed parametric study, particularly exploring the potential impact of assessing a different plasma gas, treating mammalian cells, reducing the time between EP and CAPP treatments to deliver CAPP induced radicals while the membrane pore fractional area is larger, or assessing the impact of longer duration EPs to increase pore size and lifetime to facilitate radical species delivery into the cells, has not been performed. The current study serves as a first step for this parametric study to elucidate the potential synergies between CAPPs and EPs. We expose Jurkat cells, an immortalized human leukemia cell line, to EPs with durations from nanoseconds to microseconds at constant pulse energy with various helium plasma jet
⁴
exposure times and time delays between EP and CAPP exposure ranging from 15 s to 1 min. We report cell death and membrane permeabilization by propidium iodide and YO-PRO1 to assess the impact of system design on cell death and pore size, and lifetime as a function of the various system parameters. Potential implications for designing a system capable of delivering this combined treatment modality will be discussed.