In situ application of non-thermal plasma: preliminary investigations for colorectal and lung tolerance

Non-thermal plasma (NTP) has a significant antitumor activity in vitro on different cell lines including brain, colorectal and lung tumor. The necessary dose to kill 50% of cells was ~9J/cm² for these different cell lines. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) generated during treatment appears to be responsible of this effect and induce DNA damages together with a cell cycle arrest leading to an apoptosis induction. These promising results in vitro lead us to evaluate NTP in vivo. The tolerance study was conducted with NF-kB-luc reported mice. NFkB is a transcription factor implied in inflammatory process and bioluminescence imaging of this strain of mice allows monitoring of inflammation intensity and time course. Tracheal intubation with Plasma Gun using a small catheter and low gas flow was successfully achieved. As a preliminary result, an induction of the inflammatory process was observed in the treated lung after 6 and 12 min of treatment. Concerning colorectal inflammation following FE-DBD treatment, NF-kB mice failed to reveal any inflammation in preliminary experiments. Further investigations are needed to elaborate a treatment protocol for lung and colorectal tumor treatment. Keywords: Non-Thermal Plasma, Antitumor activity, Tolerance study