Cell membrane damage and cargo delivery in nano-electroporation

Abstract

Nano-channel electroporation (NEP) is a new technology for cell transfection, which provides superior gene delivery and cell viability to conventional bulk electroporation (BEP). In NEP, cells laid on a porous...

Joule heating and electroosmotic flow in cellular micro/nano electroporation

“…50 V was a threshold to transport FAM-ODN into the cells as demonstrated in our previous study. 8 The fluorescence intensity of the cell kept increasing during a 10-pulse electroporation (Fig. 2a).…”

“…Both Joule heating and EO are minimal. In stage two where the voltage is higher than the membrane poration threshold, the cell membrane can be porated successfully 8 and cargoes can be delivered to the cell by EP even with some EO bulk flow. The Joule heating effect is still not significant.…”

“…Due to the E -field distribution around each cell, a large portion of the cell membrane is inevitably damaged for successful poration and cargo transport. 8 However, BEP mostly suffers from uncontrollable cargo dosage and large cell to cell variation. Even though the electric field is relatively uniform in the bulk solution, cells do not usually have a uniform size.…”

“…A few previous studies revealed the minimum voltage (or threshold voltage) in NEP/MEP systems for electro-pore formation and delivery of different sized cargos. 8,14,21,22 However, little is studied on the maximum voltage to be used in NEP/MEP. As transfection voltage increases, cell membrane damage always becomes more intense, contributing to lower cell viability.…”

“…As transfection voltage increases, cell membrane damage always becomes more intense, contributing to lower cell viability. 8 Meanwhile, the coupling between electric field, Joule heating, and electrokinetic flow cannot be negligible anymore. First, Joule heating becomes a concern 23,24 due to higher local electric field strength in the confined channels.…”