Author(s)

Joanna Hirschberg^1,2, Christoph Gerhard^1,2, Andrea Braun³, Stefan Grottker¹, Alexander Krupp², Steffen Emmert³, Wolfgang Viöl^1,2

¹Department of Sciences and Technology, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Göttingen, Germany.
²Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST, Application Center for Plasma and Photonic APP, Göttingen, Germany.
³Department of Dermatology, Venerology and Allergology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.

In this work, the suitability of lipid stripping as an alternative model of stratum corneum for plasma medical studies was investigated. Plasma treatment experiments were performed on samples prepared by the cyanoacrylat stripping method. Therefore, two different dielectric barrier discharge-based plasma sources driven by high-voltage pulses in the microsecond and nanosecond range were applied. The lipid sample heating, change in pH-value, and the interaction with plasma-induced UV-radiation are presented and discussed with respect to existing findings on skin samples. After the plasma treatment, the lipid stripping shows similar changes compared to human skin relating to sample heating and pH-value. The investigation of the interplay with UV- radiation shows a high absorption in the wavelength range of 250 nm up to 400 nm. Further, the thickness, surface structure, and composition of lipid stripping samples were determined. The stripped sample shows a thickness of 3 ± 1 μm whereby approximately 30% of the sample surface is covered by lipids. In addition, it was shown that there are no changes in structure caused by the sample preparation. Based on the results of this work, it can be stated that lipid stripping represents an appropriate skin model for plasma medical investigations.

Lipid Stripping, Skin Model, Plasma Medicine, Dielectric Barrier Discharge

Hirschberg, J. , Gerhard, C. , Braun, A. , Grottker, S. , Krupp, A. , Emmert, S. and Viöl, W. (2015) Validation of the Suitability of Stripped Lipid as a Skin Model in Plasma Medical Investigations. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 5, 40-49. doi: 10.4236/ojapps.2015.52005.