Plasma interaction with microbes

By Mounir Laroussi, D. Mendis, M. Rosenberg. 2003

412 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The germicidal effects of a non-equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma generated by a novel resistive barrier discharge on representatives of the two classes of bacteria (Gram-negative and Gram-positive) are discussed. The plasma exposure, while being lethal to both bacterial classes, also produced gross structural damage in the Gram-negative E. coli while none was observed in the more structurally robust Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis. An electrophysical process involving the role of the electrostatic tension on a charged body in a plasma is invoked to explain both observations. Since the efficacy of this electrophysical process depends not only on the tensile strength of the bacterial cell wall but also on its shape and texture, the need for more experimental studies, using a wide range of bacteria belonging to various morphological groups, is suggested. Ways to further test the validity of this electrophysical lysis mechanism for Gram-negative bacteria on one hand, and also to extend its operation to the more robust Gram-positive bacteria on the other, are suggested.

Subfields: Biotechnology, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/52f839f6120c816bc1ec066cef2075b127214777

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In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

In Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

Citations in the corpus

Applied Plasma Medicine (2008, background): “Alexeff and Laroussi and their colleagues reported a rather interesting modification of a conventional dielectric barrier discharge – a Resistive Barrier Discharge (RDB) [2, 45, 46].”
Atomic-scale simulations of reactive oxygen plasma species interacting with bacterial cell walls (2012, background): “For this and other biomedical purposes, low-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma (LTAPP) sources, such as resistive barrier discharges [4], dielectric barrier discharges (e.”
Complex plasma: dusts in plasma (2007, background): “This area may be developed further in the near future [140].”
Cell permeabilization using a non-thermal plasma (2009, background): “However, ions are mostly present in direct application of the plasma as these charged species rapidly recombine in the afterglow [16].”
Physical and biological mechanisms of direct plasma interaction with living tissue (2009, background): “Some examples of medical applications of plasma are the use of plasma in the treatment of dental cavities [2, 3], sterilization of various surfaces [4]–[7], treatment of skin diseases [1, 4], [8]–[10], delicate surgeries [3, 11]–[13] and many other applications (see [1, 14, 15] for”
Low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma sources for microbial decontamination (2011, background): “Proof for demolished membranes or other morphological disorders can also be given by electron microscopy (Laroussi et al., 2003) or atomic force microscopy (Pompl et al., 2009; Hähnel et al., 2010a; Kuo et al., 2006).”