Fig. 6

Following Jang et al. regarding the neural differentiation mechanism of cold plasma. Plasma treatment directly induced an increase in extracellular NO and targeted mitochondria. NO contends with O₂ for binding to the active site of the cytochrome c oxidase, mitochondrial electron transport chain complex IV, and reversibly impeding its activity. Mitochondrial •O₂⁻ is generated by virtue of an electron reduction of O₂ by means of obstructing electron transfer in the electron transport chain. Then, mitochondrial •O₂⁻ further leads to the production of intracellular H₂O₂, which could activate the Trk/Ras/ERK signaling pathway in specific by playing the role of an intracellular messenger, and finally resulted in neural differentiation