DataSheet1_Suppression of Breast Cancer Cell Migration and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition by Atmospheric Pressure Plasma.PDF

Atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) has emerged rapidly as a potent tool for cancer therapy thanks to its multiple anti-cancer effects. Depending on the types, APP has been shown to induce necrosis, apoptosis, or senescence in cancer cells in vitro and reduce tumor size in vivo. While recent progress in plasma medicine has led to various hypotheses for the molecular mechanism of APP, the key effector in anti-cancer processes still remains elusive. In this study, we show that APP treatment on an invasive breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231) dramatically alters these cells’ morphology and further suppresses migratory activity. In addition to the functional changes, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers, such as vimentin and alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), were found to be down-regulated in MDA-MB-231 by the APP treatment. As a result, APP treatment appears to impact the invasive nature of cancer cells, motivating the possible use of APP as a therapeutic tool to suppress cancer metastasis.

大气压等离子体（Atmospheric pressure plasma, APP）凭借多重抗癌效应，已迅速成为癌症治疗领域极具潜力的强效工具。研究表明，根据类型差异，APP可在体外诱导癌细胞发生坏死、凋亡或细胞衰老，并在体内缩小肿瘤体积。尽管等离子体医学领域的近期进展已针对APP的抗癌分子机制提出了多种假说，但其抗癌过程中的核心效应因子仍难以阐明。本研究发现，对侵袭性乳腺癌细胞系（MDA-MB-231）施加APP处理后，可显著改变该类细胞的形态，并进一步抑制其迁移活性。除上述功能层面的变化外，研究还观察到，APP处理可使MDA-MB-231细胞中上皮间质转化（Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition, EMT）相关标志物——如波形蛋白（vimentin）与α-平滑肌肌动蛋白（α-SMA）——的表达水平下调。综上，APP处理可影响癌细胞的侵袭特性，为将APP作为抑制癌症转移的治疗工具提供了潜在可能。