Friday, October 28, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
Ionized plasma has many applications, such as for sterilization, tissue removal, and cauterization of blood vessels to stop bleeding. Our laboratory is studying its effectiveness for the treatment of cancer. Ionized nonthermal plasma can induce cell death by necrosis, which is highly inflammatory. Our objective is to induce the cancer cells to undergo preprogrammed cell death which is a noninflammatory method to kill cancer cells. Our hypothesis is that by varying treatment parameters, nonthermal plasma can induce preprogrammed cell death in cancer cells. By varying the distance and time of exposure, we were able to induce apoptosis in acute monocytic leukemia cells (THP-1). Apoptotic cells were identified, using fluorescent dye conjugated annexin V. We are also investigating another pathway of preprogrammed cell death via autophagy. FITC-labeled anti-LC3 detects the autophgic process. The results obtained from these experiments will allow for further investigation of the effects of non-thermal ionized plasma on cancer cell lines and lead to an inexpensive method for treating skin cancer and cancerous lesions.