The molecular basis for selectivity of the cytotoxic response of lung adenocarcinoma cells to cold atmospheric plasma

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a promising approach for the treatment of malignant tumors. Evidence suggests that, under optimal discharge parameters, CAP is able to selectively induce tumor cell death with minimal effect on non-cancerous cells. Previously, we determined the optimal CAP discharge regime under which human lung tumor cells experienced a substantial decrease in viability while normal lung cells showed weak decrease. We examined transcriptome changes of A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells and Wi-38 normal lung fibroblasts under CAP treatment. Cells were treated with CAP for 1 minute, and after 3 and 24 hours, we performed cell lysis and total RNA extraction. RNA samples from CAP treated cells and untreated controls were used for polyA cDNA library construction and NGS sequencing on the NextSeq Illumina 1500 platform. Through functional analysis of differentially expressed genes, we identified core transcription factors and molecular pathways involved in the response to CAP treatment in both tumor and normal cells. We also highlighted features that are common and different between the two cell lines.