Electroporation is already an established technique in several areas of medicine, but many of its biotechnological applications have only started to emerge. We reviewed some of the most promising, first outlining the best established – the use of reversible electroporation for heritable genetic modification of microorganisms (electrotransformation), and then explored recent advances in applying electroporation for inactivation of microorganisms, extraction of biomolecules, and drying of biomass. Although these applications often aim to upscale to the industrial and/or clinical level, we also outlined some important chip-scale applications of electroporation. We concluded our review with a discussion of the main challenges and future perspectives.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11070548
The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of in situ monitoring of electric field distribution during in vivo electroporation of mouse tumors in order to predict reversibly electroporated tumor areas. Reversibly electroporated tumor areas were determined by means of magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT). In addition, T1-weighted images of tumors were acquired to determine entrapment of contrast agent within the reversibly electroporated area. Obtained tumor areas were also histologically analyzed by means of histopathological staining. Results showed that coverage of tumors with reversibly electroporated tumor cells obtained by MREIT and fraction of tumors with entrapped MR contrast agent were correlated and were statistically similar to fraction of tumors with entrapped fluorescent dye. Implementation of presented method in electroporation based treatments could increase efficiency of the treatment.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10729556
In silico experiments (numerical simulations) are a valuable tool for non-invasive research of the influences of tissue properties, electrode placement and electric pulse delivery scenarios in the process of electroporation. The work described in this article was aimed at introducing time dependent effects into a finite element model developed specifically for electroporation. Reference measurements were made ex vivo on beef liver samples and experimental data were used both as an initial condition for simulation (applied pulse voltage) and as a reference value for numerical model calibration (measured pulse current). The developed numerical model is able to predict the time evolution of an electric pulse current within a 5% error over a broad range of applied pulse voltages, pulse durations and pulse repetition frequencies. Given the good agreement of the current flowing between the electrodes, we are confident that the results of our numerical model can be used both for detailed in silico research of electroporation mechanisms (giving researchers insight into time domain effects) and better treatment planning algorithms, which predict the outcome of treatment based on both spatial and temporal distributions of applied electric pulses.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11363668
We focused on two physical enhancement methods for transdermal drug delivery: ultrasound and electric pulses either alone or in combination. We have shown a statistically significant enhancement of calcein delivery already after 5 minutes of low-frequency ultrasound application, or only 100 short high voltage electrical pulses between 6 electode pairs. We also experimented with combinations of the two enhancement methods hoping for synergistic effects, however, the results showed no evident drastic improvement over single method. Great emphasis has been given on the design of the experimental system and protocols, so the results and the conclusions drawn from them would have greater relevance for in vivo use and later translation into clinical practice.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11032660
High-frequency bipolar electric pulses have been shown to mitigate undesirable muscle contraction during irreversible electroporation (IRE) therapy. Here, we evaluate the potential applicability of such pulses for introducing exogenous molecules into cells, such as in electrochemotherapy (ECT). For this purpose we developed a method for calculating the time course of the effective permeability of an electroporated cell membrane based on real-time imaging of propidium transport into single cells that allows a quantitative comparison between different pulsing schemes. We calculate the effective permeability for several pulsed electric field treatments including trains of 100 μs monopolar pulses, conventionally used in IRE and ECT, and pulse trains containing bursts or evenly spaced 1 μs bipolar pulses. We show that shorter bipolar pulses induce lower effective membrane permeability than longer monopolar pulses with equivalent treatment times. This lower efficiency can be attributed to incomplete membrane charging. Nevertheless, bipolar pulses could be used for increasing the uptake of small molecules into cells more symmetrically, but at the expense of higher applied voltages. These data indicate that high-frequency bipolar bursts of electrical pulses may be designed to electroporate cells as effectively as and more homogeneously than conventional monopolar pulses.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11558740