Investigation on a He-Plasma Gun source for cosmetic purposes:the importance of skin microenvironment

With the increase of human span life people demand to live and look better. In a world where appearance is synonymous of health, the demand of new cosmetic has literally exploded. Among cosmetic treatments, skin care represents a large part of the business of beauty. From 2017 to 2023, world-wide non-surgical skin cosmetic treatments business will have a compound annual growth rate between 4.7% and 5.3% [1]. The increased demand of non-surgical beauty treatments pushed cosmetic research during the last years. In Europe since 2013 cosmetic tests on animal model are definitively banned. This encouraged researchers to develop new approaches to study skin “in-vitro” using either re-constructed tissue structure or attempting to mimic skin microenvironment parameters. Cell culture has been used since a long time to study organ functions in laboratory. In the last decades cell culture has greatly evolved in order to mimic the real tissue structure and microenvironment. Cells are cultivated in three dimensions and media are adapted to better simulate the extracellular environment. Attempting to get closer to the physiological micro-environment of a cell, scientists underestimated often a key parameter: the oxygen level [2]. While oxygen represents the 21% of the air gases, in human tissues, its percentage is significantly lower. In skin, it can vary from 7% to 1%. To be as close as possible to skin microenvironment, in our lab we grow human skin cells either in classic normoxic condition (18% O2) or in physioxic condition (3% O2). Oxygen has a key role in cell respiration and in reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. We have already demonstrated that skin cells raised in physioxia produce lower quantity of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) even when exposed to plasma treatment [3]. In this study we evaluated the effect of a Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) treatment on human skin cell raised either in normoxia or in physioxia. In particular, modulating plasma parameters from our helium Plasma Gun, we investigated the ability of CAP to improve cell viability and extracellular matrix production such as collagen, hyaluronic acid and elastin, macromolecules involved in maintaining the health and beauty of the skin. References [1] https://www.reportlinker.com/p05112181 [2] A. Carreau, B. El Hafny-Rahbi, A. Matejuk, C. Grillon, and C. Kieda, “Why is the partial oxygen pressure of human tissues a crucial parameter? Small molecules and hypoxia” J. Cell. Mol. Med., vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 1239–1253, (2011). [3] G Busco, F Fasani, S Dozias, L Ridou, C Douat, J-M Pouvesle, E Robert , and C Grillon “Changes in Oxygen Level Upon Cold Plasma Treatments: Consequences for RONS Production”, IEEE TRPMS, (2017). This work was supported by Cosmetosciences, a global training and research program dedicated to the cosmetic industry. Located in the heart of the Cosmetic Valley, this program led by University of Orleans is funded by the Region Centre-Val de Loire, France.