{"doi":"10.1016/j.jbc.2022.101793","title":"Development of an atmospheric plasma jet device for versatile treatment of electron microscope sample grids","abstract":"Atmospheric-pressure plasmas have been widely applied for surface modification and biomedical treatment because of their ability to generate highly reactive radicals and charged particles. In negative-stain electron microscopy (Neg-EM) and cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), plasmas have been used to generate hydrophilic surfaces and eliminate surface contaminants to embed specimens onto grids. In addition, plasma treatment is a prerequisite for negative-stain and Quantifoil grids, whose surfaces are coated with hydrophobic amorphous carbon. Although the conventional glow discharge system has been used successfully in this purpose, there has been no further effort to take an advantage from the recent progress in the plasma field. Here, we developed a nonthermal atmospheric plasma jet system as an alternative tool for treatment of surfaces. The low-temperature plasma is a nonequilibrium system that has been widely used in biomedical area. Unlike conventional glow discharge systems, the plasma jet system successfully cleans and introduces hydrophilicity on the grid surface in the ambient environment without a vacuum. Therefore, we anticipate that the plasma jet system will have numerous benefits, such as convenience and versatility, as well as having potential applications in surface modification for both negative-stain and cryo-EM grid treatment. Atmospheric-pressure plasmas have been widely applied for surface modification and biomedical treatment because of their ability to generate highly reactive radicals and charged particles. In negative-stain electron microscopy (Neg-EM) and cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), plasmas have been used to generate hydrophilic surfaces and eliminate surface contaminants to embed specimens onto grids. In addition, plasma treatment is a prerequisite for negative-stain and Quantifoil grids, whose surfaces are coated with hydrophobic amorphous carbon. Although the conventional glow discharge system has been used successfully in this purpose, there has been no further effort to take an advantage from the recent progress in the plasma field. Here, we developed a nonthermal atmospheric plasma jet system as an alternative tool for treatment of surfaces. The low-temperature plasma is a nonequilibrium system that has been widely used in biomedical area. Unlike conventional glow discharge systems, the plasma jet system successfully cleans and introduces hydrophilicity on the grid surface in the ambient environment without a vacuum. Therefore, we anticipate that the plasma jet system will have numerous benefits, such as convenience and versatility, as well as having potential applications in surface modification for both negative-stain and cryo-EM grid treatment. Plasma treatment for materials processing has a long history and has been successfully used in the semiconductor industry. For the last couple of decades, low-temperature plasmas (LTPs) under atmospheric pressure have been applied to a wide range of biomedical and surface-treatment applications because they can control the chemical reactions of radicals and change the energy distributions of charged particles (1Park J. Lee H. Lee H.J. Kim G.C. Kim D.Y. Han S. Song K. Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma efficiently promotes the proliferation of adipose tissue-derived stem cells by activating NO-response pathways.Sci. Rep. 2016; 6: 39298Crossref PubMed Scopus (28) Google Scholar, 2Choi J.-H. Song Y.-S. Lee H.-J. Hong J.-W. Kim G.-C. Inhibition of inflammatory reactions in 2,4-Dinitrochlorobenzene induced Nc/Nga atopic dermatitis mice by non-thermal plasma.Sci. Rep. 2016; 6: 27376Crossref PubMed Scopus (22) Google Scholar, 3Tang T.Y. Kim H.S. Kim G.H. Lee B. Lee H.J. Optical diagnostics of the characteristics of a square unipolar nanosecond pulse-driven atmospheric pressure helium plasma jet.AIP Adv. 2020; 10: 125218Crossref Scopus (1) Google Scholar). LTPs have nonequilibrium electrons and ions, where the gas and ion temperatures ar","journal":"Journal of Biological Chemistry","year":2022,"id":293600,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9554,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":826288,"name":"Tianyu Tang","orcid":"0000-0003-4825-2189","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":978310,"name":"Byung Chul Kim","orcid":"0000-0001-7073-5318","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":826289,"name":"Hae June Lee","orcid":"0000-0003-3401-3355","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488252,"name":"Uhn‐Soo Cho","orcid":"0000-0002-6992-2455","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":826287,"name":"Eungjin Ahn","orcid":"0000-0003-2182-7421","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":34,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:30:53.818562Z","pmid":"35248533","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}