We investigated morphological change of an artificial lipid bilayer membrane induced by oxygen radicals which were generated by non-equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma. Neutral oxygen species, O((3)Pj) and O2((1)Δg), were irradiated of a supported lipid bilayer existing under a buffer solution at various conditions of dose time and distances, at which the dose amounts of the oxygen species were calculated quantitatively. Observation using an atomic force microscope and a fluorescence microscope revealed that dose of the neutral oxygen species generated nanopores with the diameter of 10-50 nm in a phospholipid bilayer, and finally destructed the bilayer structure. We found that protrusions appeared on the lipid bilayer surface prior to the formation of nanopores, and we attributed the protrusions to the precursor of the nanopores. We propose a mechanism of the pore formation induced by lipid oxidation on the basis of previous experimental and theoretical studies.

Plasma medicine is an emerging research field in which various applications of electrical discharge, especially in the form of nonequilibrium plasma at atmospheric pressure, are examined, for example, the application of plasma to biological targets for various purposes such as selective killing of tumor cells and blood stanching. We have focused on the behavior of an artificial cell membrane system at the solid-liquid interface. To evaluate the lateral lipid mobility, we measured the diffusion coefficient of the supported lipid bilayer (SLB) composed of dioleoylphosphatidylcholine with fluorescence recovery after photobleaching by confocal laser scanning microscopy. It was found that the diffusion coefficient was decreased by plasma irradiation and that the diffusion coefficient decreasing rate proceeded with increasing plasma power. We investigated the effects of stimulation with an equilibrium chemical, H 2 O 2 , on the SLB and confirmed that the diffusion coefficient did not change at least up to a H 2 O 2 concentration of 5 mM. These results indicate that transient active species generated by plasma play critical roles in the reduction in SLB fluidity. The effects of the two generated major oxidized lipid species, hydroxyl-or hydroperoxy-phosphatidylcholine (PC) and acyl-chain-truncated PCs terminated with aldehyde or carboxyl group, on lateral lipid mobility are discussed.

A lipid bilayer is a basic structure of the cell membrane and is stable in liquid solution. In this study, we analyzed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) containing water on a quartz substrate using a one-dimensional fluid model. To simulate atmospheric pressure plasma for practical use, a tiny amount of N 2 gas (0.5 ppm) was added to He gas ambient as an impure gas. The calculated current-voltage (I-V) characteristics reproduced the measured ones qualitatively. We focused on the behavior of DBD at the plasma-liquid interface and analyzed the temporal behavior of the electric field strength and incident fluxes of charged, excited, and radical species on the water surface. By varying the gap length, it was shown that the maximum electric field strength in an AC cycle saturated at gap lengths ;0.15 cm. The incident fluxes of N 2 + and He 2 + on the water surface are almost the same and show strong correlations with the electric field in the vicinity of the water surface.