Cold atmospheric plasma induced genotoxicity and cytotoxicity in esophageal cancer cells.

In this paper, we studied the functional effects of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) on the esophageal cancer cell line (KYSE-30) by direct and indirect treatment and fibroblast cell lines as normal cells. KYSE-30 cells were treated with CAP at different time points of 60, 90, 120 and, 240 s for direct exposure and 90, 180, 240 and, 360 s for indirect exposure. Cell viability was studied by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide and apoptosis induction in the treated cells was measured by Annexin-V/PI using flow cytometry. The expression of apoptotic related genes (BAX/BCL-2) was analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Moreover, the genotoxicity was analyzed by comet assay. Cell viability results showed that direct CAP treatment has a markedly cytotoxic impact on the reduction of KYSE-30 cells at 60 s (p = 0.000), while indirect exposure was less impactful (p > 0.05). The results of the Annexin-V/PI staining confirmed this analysis. Subsequently, the genotoxicity study of the direct CAP treatment demonstrated a longer tail-DNA length and caused increase in DNA damage in the cells (p < 0.00001) as well as shift BAX/BCL-2 toward apoptosis. The concentration of H2O2 and NO2- in direct CAP treatment was significantly higher than indirect (p > 0.05). Treatment with direct CAP showed genotoxicity in cancer cells. Collectively, our results pave a deeper understanding of CAP functions and the way for further investigations in the field of esophageal cancer treatment.

There is no Difference Between Sequences of HIV-1 Infected Patients with Stable Clinical Status and HIV-1 Reference Sequence.

BACKGROUND: The rate of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection in Iran has increased dramatically in the past few years. HIV-1 genome sequences are pivotal for large-scale studies of inter- and intra-host evolution. To understand the molecular difference between reference HIV-1 isolate and two HIV-1 infected patients in Iran, we conducted this study to analyze some genome segments of Iranian HIV-1 isolates. METHODS: Two HIV-1-infected individuals who were under antiretroviral therapy (ARV) for 8 years with stable clinical status were enrolled. The patient's plasma samples were used for the Gag-Pol genome sequences (4500 nt). The phylogenetic tree and similarity plotty were obtained based on Gag-Pol sequences. RESULTS: Both HIV-1-infected isolates belonged to CRF35_AD subtype even though one of them had drug resistance. The HIV genome and protein sequences showed no clear difference between genome and protein sequences of our samples and the reference sequence. CONCLUSIONS: Our patient's stable clinical status had no connection to genome sequence; which could be owing to immunological factors or other patient's mode which are still unknown.