Abstract
Nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasmas are gaining increasing attention for biomedical applications. However, very little fundamental information on the interaction mechanisms between the plasma species and biological cells is currently available. We investigate the interaction of important plasma species, such as OH, H2O2, O, O-3, as well as O-2 and H2O, with bacterial peptidoglycan by means of reactive molecular dynamics simulations, aiming for a better understanding of plasma disinfection. Our results show that OH, O, O-3, and H2O2 can break structurally important bonds of peptidoglycan (i.e., C-O, C-N, or C-C bonds), which consequently leads to the destruction of the bacterial cell wall. The mechanisms behind these breakups are, however, dependent on the impinging plasma species, and this also determines the effectiveness of the cell wall destruction.