Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP)-induced radicals on the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which is overexpressed by oral squamous cell carcinoma, to determine the underlying mechanism of selective killing. CAP-induced highly reactive radicals were observed in both plasma plume and cell culture media. The selective killing effect was observed in oral squamous cell carcinoma compared with normal human gingival fibroblast. Degradation and dysfunction of EGFRs were observed only in the EGFR-overexpressing oral squamous cell carcinoma and not in the normal cell. Nitric oxide scavenger pretreatment in cell culture media before CAP treatment rescued above degradation and dysfunction of the EGFR as well as the killing effect in oral squamous cell carcinoma. CAP may be a promising cancer treatment method by inducing EGFR dysfunction in EGFR-overexpressing oral squamous cell carcinoma via nitric oxide radicals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0150279 |
| Journal | PloS one |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 Feb |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP; Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning) (NRF-2010-0027963) and by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (grant number:2009–0093829). All authors declare no conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Lee et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General
