Sarka Kubinova
Institute of Experimental Medicine CAS, Czech Republic
Title: Non-thermal air plasma in skin wound healing
Biography
Biography: Sarka Kubinova
Abstract
Non-thermal plasma (NTP) is a partially ionized gas generated from a flow of neutral gas in a locally high-strength electric field, while the gas remains at atmospheric pressure and near ambient temperature. Due to its non-specific antimicrobial properties, NTP represents an effective tool for skin disinfection and treatment of chronic wounds and other skin pathologies. Generally, the underlying biological effects of non-thermal plasma are caused by accumulation of ROS /RNS species and modulation of cellular processes related to redox signaling. We have previously demonstrated NTP system generating atmospheric pressure air plasma that shown antibacterial effects and improved the healing efficacy of acute skin wounds in rats and small animals. In addition, repeated application of NTP remarkably improved the healing of chronic wounds of various causalities in veterinary medicine in small animals and sport horses. In the recent study, we analyzed the effect of NTP on the healing of the full-thickness skin wound model in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. The skin wounds were exposed to three daily plasma treatments for 1.5 minutes and were evaluated 3, 7 and 14 days after the wounding by histological and gene expression analysis. NTP treatment significantly enhanced wound contraction on day 7 when compared to the untreated diabetic wounds and control non-diabetic wounds. Gene expression analysis after 7 days revealed an increased expression of an inflammatory marker IL-1b, IL-6, iNos, COX-2 and CCL2 in diabetic wounds, which was significantly reduced after the NTP treatment. On the other hand, the number of CD68+ macrophages and the amount of collagen in the wound area did not differ after the NTP treatment. In summary, the NTP treatment improved the healing efficacy and reduced inflammatory reaction of acute skin wounds in the model of diabetic rats. The obtained results confirm the safety and suitability of NTP applications for the future therapy in patients.