Cell damaging by irradiating non-thermal plasma to the water: Mathematical modeling of chemical processes

Recently non-thermal plasma (NTP) is applied for many therapeutic applications. By NTP irradiating to the tissues or cell-lines, the water molecules (H₂O) would be also activated leading to generate hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). By irradiating plasma to bio-solution, its main output including vacuum UV to UV causes the photolysis of H₂O leading to generate hydroxyl (OH) molecules in couple forms with ability to convert to H₂O₂. Additionally, other plasma's output the oxygen atoms could also penetrate under the liquid's surface and react with H₂O to generate H₂O₂. In NTP applications for killing unwanted-cells of microorganisms (e.g. sterilization) or cancerous tissues, the H₂O₂ molecule is the main reactive species for cell death via inducing DNA damage in mammalian cells. In this paper we proposed a mathematical model for NTP application describing the formation of hydroxyls in the bio solution and other subsequent reactions leading to DNA damage in vitro. The instant concentrations of the OH and H₂O₂, the main species for DNA oxidation were obtained and investigated in this simulation. In order to validate the model, the cellular response to NTP stimulation was compared with some experimental findings from viewpoint of DNA damage to show the significant consistency.