Microplasma Induced Cell Morphological Changes and Apoptosis of Ex Vivo Cultured Human Anterior Lens Epithelial Cells – Relevance to Capsular Opacification

Abstract

Inducing selective or targeted cell apoptosis without affecting large number of neighbouring cells remains a challenge. A plausible method for treatment of posterior capsular opacification (PCO) due to remaining lens epithelial cells (LECs) by reactive chemistry induced by localized single electrode microplasma discharge at top of a needle-like glass electrode with spot size ~3 μm is hereby presented. The focused and highly-localized atmospheric pressure microplasma jet with electrode discharge could induce a dose-dependent apoptosis in selected and targeted individual LECs, which could be confirmed by real-time monitoring of the morphological and structural changes at cellular level. Direct cell treatment with microplasma inside the medium appeared more effective in inducing apoptosis (caspase 8 positivity and DNA fragmentation) at a highly targeted cell level compared to treatment on top of the medium (indirect treatment). Our results show that single cell specific micropipette plasma can be used to selectively induce demise in LECs which remain in the capsular bag after cataract surgery and thus prevent their migration (CXCR4 positivity) to the posterior lens capsule and PCO formation.

High throughput image cytometry micronucleus assay to investigate the presence or absence of mutagenic effects of cold physical plasma

“…Great efforts are currently made extending the range of plasma applications with different devices. This includes blood coagulation [Amritkar et al, 2013;Aleinik et al, 2017;Miyamoto et al, 2017], ophthalmology [Rosani et al, 2015;Ye et al, 2015;Recek et al, 2016], oncology [Ye et al, 2015;Mirpour et al, 2016;Binenbaum et al, 2017], and various diseases in dermatology [Daeschlein et al, 2010[Daeschlein et al, , 2011Klebes et al, 2014]. Addressing not only the efficacy but also safety of different plasma sources or their optimum operational settings, genotoxic testing is indispensable.…”

Anti-Tumor Activity of Cembranoid-Type Diterpenes Isolated from Nicotiana tabacum L.

“…Another obvious hallmark of antitumor substances acting on tumor cells is altering the morphology of cells, resulting in apoptosis [26]. One of the main manifestations of apoptosis is morphological changes [27]. In this study, the morphological changes of HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells treated with α-CBD were observed under a light microscope and a fluorescence microscope.…”

Three-Dimensional Human Cell Culture Models to Study the Pathophysiology of the Anterior Eye

“…During that time LEC growth was monitored under transmission light microscopy to determine the area of LEC coverage over the posterior capsule surface. Pharmacological [195] or other treatments [196] were shown to prevent posterior capsule opacity formation using the ex vivo human capsular bag model. Lentoid bodies (LBs) are in vitro 3D structures created from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that exhibit biological lens characteristics.…”

“…During that time LEC growth was monitored under transmission light microscopy to determine the area of LEC coverage over the posterior capsule surface. Pharmacological [ 195 ] or other treatments [ 196 ] were shown to prevent posterior capsule opacity formation using the ex vivo human capsular bag model.…”