No Arabic abstract
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important signaling molecule in cancer cells. However, the significant secretion of H2O2 by cancer cells have been rarely observed. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a near room temperature ionized gas composed of neutral particles, charged particles, reactive species, and electrons. Here, we first demonstrated that breast cancer cells and pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells generated micromolar level H2O2 during just 1 min of direct CAP treatment on these cells. The cell-based H2O2 generation is affected by the medium volume, the cell confluence, as well as the discharge voltage. The application of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) in the cancer treatment has been intensively investigated over the past decade. Several cellular responses to the CAP treatment have been observed including the consumption of the CAP-originated reactive species, the rise of intracellular reactive oxygen species, the damage on DNA and mitochondria, as well as the activation of apoptotic events. This is a new previously unknown cellular response to CAP, which provides a new prospective to understand the interaction between CAP and cells.
Measurements on embryonic epithelial tissues in a diverse range of organisms have shown that the statistics of cell neighbor numbers are universal in tissues where cell proliferation is the primary cell activity. Highly simplified non-spatial models of proliferation are claimed to accurately reproduce these statistics. Using a systematic critical analysis, we show that non-spatial models are not capable of robustly describing the universal statistics observed in proliferating epithelia, indicating strong spatial correlations between cells. Furthermore we show that spatial simulations using the Subcellular Element Model are able to robustly reproduce the universal histogram. In addition these simulations are able to unify ostensibly divergent experimental data in the literature. We also analyze cell neighbor statistics in early stages of chick embryo development in which cell behaviors other than proliferation are important. We find from experimental observation that cell neighbor statistics in the primitive streak region, where cell motility and ingression are also important, show a much broader distribution. A non-spatial Markov process model provides excellent agreement with this broader histogram indicating that cells in the primitive streak may have significantly weaker spatial correlations. These findings show that cell neighbor statistics provide a potentially useful signature of collective cell behavior.
Cyanobacteria forming one-dimensional filaments are paradigmatic model organisms of the transition between unicellular and multicellular living forms. Under nitrogen limiting conditions, in filaments of the genus Anabaena, some cells differentiate into heterocysts, which lose the possibility to divide but are able to fix environmental nitrogen for the colony. These heterocysts form a quasi-regular pattern in the filament, representing a prototype of patterning and morphogenesis in prokaryotes. Recent years have seen advances in the identification of the molecular mechanism regulating this pattern. We use this data to build a theory on heterocyst pattern formation, for which both genetic regulation and the effects of cell division and filament growth are key components. The theory is based on the interplay of three generic mechanisms: local autoactivation, early long range inhibition, and late long range inhibition. These mechanisms can be identified with the dynamics of hetR, patS and hetN expression. Our theory reproduces quantitatively the experimental dynamics of pattern formation and maintenance for wild type and mutants. We find that hetN alone is not enough to play the role as the late inhibitory mechanism: a second mechanism, hypothetically the products of nitrogen fixation supplied by heterocysts, must also play a role in late long range inhibition. The preponderance of even intervals between heterocysts arises naturally as a result of the interplay between the timescales of genetic regulation and cell division. We also find that a purely stochastic initiation of the pattern, without a two-stage process, is enough to reproduce experimental observations.
The formation of new bone involves both the deposition of bone matrix, and the formation of a network of cells embedded within the bone matrix, called osteocytes. Osteocytes derive from bone-synthesising cells (osteoblasts) that become buried in bone matrix during bone deposition. The generation of osteocytes is a complex process that remains incompletely understood. Whilst osteoblast burial determines the density of osteocytes, the expanding network of osteocytes regulates in turn osteoblast activity and osteoblast burial. In this paper, a spatiotemporal continuous model is proposed to investigate the osteoblast-to-osteocyte transition. The aims of the model are (i) to link dynamic properties of osteocyte generation with properties of the osteocyte network imprinted in bone, and (ii) to investigate Marottis hypothesis that osteocytes prompt the burial of osteoblasts when they become covered with sufficient bone matrix. Osteocyte density is assumed in the model to be generated at the moving bone surface by a combination of osteoblast density, matrix secretory rate, rate of entrapment, and curvature of the bone substrate, but is found to be determined solely by the ratio of the instantaneous burial rate and matrix secretory rate. Osteocyte density does not explicitly depend on osteoblast density nor curvature. Osteocyte apoptosis is also included to distinguish between the density of osteocyte lacuna and the density of live osteocytes. Experimental measurements of osteocyte lacuna densities are used to estimate the rate of burial of osteoblasts in bone matrix. These results suggest that: (i) burial rate decreases during osteonal infilling, and (ii) the control of osteoblast burial by osteocytes is likely to emanate as a collective signal from a large group of osteocytes, rather than from the osteocytes closest to the bone deposition front.
Induced effects by direct exposure to ionizing radiation (IR) are a central issue in many fields like radiation protection, clinic diagnosis and oncological therapies. Direct irradiation at certain doses induce cell death, but similar effects can also occur in cells no directly exposed to IR, a mechanism known as bystander effect. Non-IR (radiofrequency waves) can induce the death of cells loaded with MNPs in a focused oncological therapy known as magnetic hyperthermia. Indirect mechanisms are also able to induce the death of unloaded MNPs cells. Using in vitro cell models, we found that colocalization of the MNPs at the lysosomes and the non-increase of the temperature induces bystander effect under non-IR. Our results provide a landscape in which bystander effects are a more general mechanism, up to now only observed and clinically used in the field of radiotherapy.
The use of cold atmospheric plasmas (CAP) to sterilize sensitive surfaces is an interesting new field of applied plasma physics. Motivated by the shortages of face masks and safety clothing at the beginning of the corona pandemic, we conducted studies on the sterilization of FF3 face masks with CAP and the resulting material effects. Therefore, the bactericidal and sporicidal efficacy of CAP afterglow sterilization of FFP3 mask material was investigated by inoculating fabric samples with test germs Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Bacillus atrophaeus (B. atrophaeus) and subsequent CAP afterglow treatment in a surface-micro-discharge (SMD) plasma device. In addition, a detailed analysis of the changes in long-term plasma treated (15h) mask material and its individual components - ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and polypropylene (PP) - was carried out using surface analysis methods such as laser microscopy, contact angle measurements, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) as well as fabric permeability and resistance measurements. The experiments showed that E. coli and B. atrophaeus could both be effectively inactivated by plasma treatment in nitrogen mode (12 kVpp, 5 kHz). For B. atrophaeus inactivation of more than 4-log was achieved after 30 minutes. E. coli population could be reduced by 5-log within one minute of CAP treatment and after five minutes a complete inactivation (> 6-log) was achieved. Material analysis showed that long-term (> 5 h) plasma treatment affects the electrostatic properties of the fabric. From this it can be deduced that the plasma treatment of FFP3 face masks with the CAP afterglow of an SMD device effectively inactivates microorganisms on the fabric. FFP3 masks can be plasma decontaminated and reused multiple times but only to a limited extent, as otherwise the permeability levels no longer meet the DIN EN 149 specifications.