Meeting Abstract
Atmospheric pressure plasma have found large application in regenerative medicine. Presently, we investigated the effect of plasma on wound healing and tail regeneration of tadpoles, Xenopus laevis especially role of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Tail amputation was carried out by removing 40% of the tail and the amputated region was immediately exposed to helium plasma (generated inside a quartz tube with a single electrode powered by an AC voltage (15kHz) having peak-to-peak voltages of 18kV) for 40 seconds. Here we report faster rate of growth of the regenerating tail following plasma exposure. By comparing results on in situ staining for ROS, nitric oxide (NO) and mitochondria between experimental and control groups, there is increased ROS (hydrogen peroxide and superoxide but not NO) production at 2h, 4h, 12 h and 24 h post amputation at the wound site in plasma treated tadpoles. However, these ROS species were not derived from mitochondria evident from double immunostaining. Growth of the blastema (5 days post amputation) in experimental group was higher than control with increased ROS, NO and catalase in plasma exposed group compared to control. Microscopically, in plasma treated tadpoles, cells of wound and blastemic epithelium showed blebbing of plasma membrane, increased cellular lipid droplets, hypertrophy of the cells, increased mitochondrial density, and reduced intercellular connections. These findings demonstrate that some of the free radicals might be acting as signalling molecules and these tadpoles possess sophisticated mechanisms to respond to stress of plasma and yet hastening the dynamics of wound healing and tail regeneration. This work is partly supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 1040108.
