Plasma-activated hydrosol and graphene oxide nanoparticles exhibit synergistic anticancer effects

Abstract Cold atmospheric plasma-activated hydrosol (PAH) is a novel plasma application mode for the effective loading and delivery of plasma-generated reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (RONS). In this study, plasma-activated sodium alginate hydrosol (PAH SA ) was obtained from air discharge plasma, and the synergistic anticancer effects of PAH SA combined with graphene oxide nanoparticles (GO) were investigated. The results demonstrated that the oxidation-reduction potential of PAH SA increased significantly after long-lived and short-lived plasma-generated RONS, such as H 2 O 2 , NO 2 −, 1 O 2 , and ONOO − &O 2 − , were loaded. In vitro studies revealed that PAH SA exhibited significant anticancer effects by inducing intracellular oxidative stress. While B16F10 cell viability tended to decrease with increasing GO concentration, only at high concentrations did GO significantly inhibit tumor cell proliferation. In addition, when PAH SA was combined with low-dose GO (0.5 mg ml −1 ), the proliferation of B16F10 melanoma cells was significantly inhibited compared with treatment with PAH SA or GO alone at the same dose. These findings indicate that PAH SA can be combined with novel materials, thus expanding the application of plasma technology for anticancer therapy and providing new cancer treatment strategies.