Biomedical importance of indoles.

The indole nucleus is an important element of many natural and synthetic molecules with significant biological activity. This review covers some of the relevant and recent achievements in the biological, chemical and pharmacological activity of important indole derivatives in the areas of drug discovery and analysis.

Responses of solid tumor cells in DMEM to reactive oxygen species generated by non-thermal plasma and chemically induced ROS systems.

In this study, we assessed the role of different reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by soft jet plasma and chemical-induced ROS systems with regard to cell death in T98G, A549, HEK293 and MRC5 cell lines. For a comparison with plasma, we generated superoxide anion (O2(-)), hydroxyl radical (HO·), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) with chemicals inside an in vitro cell culture. Our data revealed that plasma decreased the viability and intracellular ATP values of cells and increased the apoptotic population via a caspase activation mechanism. Plasma altered the mitochondrial membrane potential and eventually up-regulated the mRNA expression levels of BAX, BAK1 and H2AX gene but simultaneously down-regulated the levels of Bcl-2 in solid tumor cells. Moreover, a western blot analysis confirmed that plasma also altered phosphorylated ERK1/2/MAPK protein levels. At the same time, using ROS scavengers with plasma, we observed that scavengers of HO· (mannitol) and H2O2 (catalase and sodium pyruvate) attenuated the activity of plasma on cells to a large extent. In contrast, radicals generated by specific chemical systems enhanced cell death drastically in cancer as well as normal cell lines in a dose-dependent fashion but not specific with regard to the cell type as compared to plasma.

Non-thermal plasma with 2-deoxy-D-glucose synergistically induces cell death by targeting glycolysis in blood cancer cells.

In this study, we show the selective and efficient anti-cancer effects of plasma (at a low dose) when cell metabolic modifiers are also included. 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), a glycolytic inhibitor, was used with effective doses of non-thermal plasma, synergistically attenuating cell metabolic viability and inducing caspase-dependent and independent cell death. The combination treatment decreased the intracellular ATP and lactate production in various types of blood cancer cells in vitro. Taken together, our findings suggest that 2-DG enhances the efficacy and selectivity of plasma and induces the synergistic inhibition of cancer cell growth by targeting glycolysis and apoptosis. Specifically, this treatment strategy demonstrated an enhanced growth inhibitory effect of plasma in the presence of a metabolic modifier that was selective against cancer cells, not non-malignant cells. This is the first study to report the advantage of combining plasma with 2-DG to eradicate blood cancer cells. Finally, we conclude that 2-DG with non-thermal plasma may be used as a combination treatment against blood cancer cells.