Glioblastoma Cell Lines Display Different Sensitivities to Plasma-Activated Medium

Plasma-activated medium (PAM) is a novel chemotherapy that induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cell death in a wide range of cancer cell types, suggesting that PAM may be a promising therapeutic option for cancer treatment. However, dose response experiments suggest that PAM sensitivity is cell line specific. We examined the sensitivities of three glioblastoma cell lines to PAM, and found a wide variation in cell killing that was linked to differences in PAM induced ROS and apoptosis. These results indicate that the PAM sensitivity of glioblastoma cells, and potentially cancer cells more generally, is heterogeneous and likely to be dependent on the regulation of apoptosis and antioxidant pathways in target cells.