RESEARCH ARTICLE Enhanced Biological Behavior of In Vitro

Objective To evaluate whether atmospheric-pressure dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma treatment of zirconia enhances its biocompatibility with human gingival fibroblasts. Materials and Methods The zirconia disks were divided into four groups and treated using helium atmospheric-pres-sure dielectric-barrier-discharge plasmas for 30, 60 or 90 s or left untreated. The surface morphology, wettability and chemical elements were analyzed. Fibroblasts density, mor-phology, morphometry and attachment-related genes expression were measured at differ-ent time points from 3 to 72 h. Results After plasma treatment, the surface morphology and roughness remained the same, while the contact angle decreased from 78.31 ° to 43.71°, and the surface C/O ratio decreased from 3.17 to 0.89. The surficial areas and perimeters of HGFs were increased two-fold in the treated groups at 3 h. Fibroblasts density increased on treated disks at all time points