The Specific Vulnerabilities of Cancer Cells to the Cold Atmospheric Plasma-Stimulated Solutions

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a novel promising anti-cancer modality, has shown its selective anti-cancer capacity on dozens of cancer cell lines in vitro and on subcutaneous xenograft tumors in mice. Over the past five years, the CAP-stimulated solutions (PSS) have also shown their selective anti-cancer effect over different cancers in vitro and in vivo. The solutions used to make PSS include several bio-adaptable solutions, mainly cell culture medium and simple buffered solutions. Both the CAP-stimulated medium (PSM) and the CAP-stimulated buffered solution (PSB) are able to significantly kill cancer cells in vitro. In this study, we systematically compared the anti-cancer effect of PSM and PSB over pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and glioblastoma cells. We demonstrated that pancreatic cancer cells and glioblastoma cells were specifically vulnerable to PSM and PSB, respectively. The specific response such as the rise of intracellular reactive oxygen species of two cancer cell lines to the H₂O₂-containing environments might result in the specific vulnerabilities to PSM and PSB. In addition, we demonstrated a basic guideline that the toxicity of PSS on cancer cells could be significantly modulated through controlling the dilutability of solution.