An atmospheric-pressure cold plasma leads to apoptosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by accumulating intracellular reactive oxygen species and calcium

A non-thermal plasma is known to induce apoptosis of various cells but the mechanism is not yet clear. A eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae was used to investigate the cellular and biochemical regulations of cell apoptosis and cell cycle after an atmospheric-pressure cold plasma treatment. More importantly, intracellular calcium (Ca2+) was first involved in monitoring the process of plasma-induced apoptosis in this study. We analysed the cell apoptosis and cell cycle by flow cytometry and observed the changes in intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and Ca2+ concentration, cell mitochondrial membrane potential (Delta psi(m)) as well as nuclear DNA morphology via fluorescence staining assay. All experimental results indicated that plasma-generated ROS leads to the accumulation of intracellular ROS and Ca2+ that ultimately contribute to apoptosis associated with cell cycle arrest at G1 phase through depolarization of Delta psi(m) and fragmenting nuclear DNA. This work provides a novel insight into the physical and biological mechanism of apoptosis induced by a plasma which could benefit for promoting the development of plasmas applied to cancer therapy.