Does the shape of the electric pulse matter in electroporation?

Abstract

Electric pulses are widely used in biology, medicine, industry, and food processing. Numerous studies indicate that electroporation (EP) is a pulse-dependent process, and the electric pulse shape and duration strongly determine permeabilization efficacy. EP protocols are precisely planned in terms of the size and charge of the molecules, which will be delivered to the cell. In reversible and irreversible EP applications, rectangular or sine, polar or bipolar pulses are commonly used. The usage of pulses of the asymmetric shape is still limited to high voltage and low voltage (HV/LV) sequences in the context of gene delivery, while EP-based applications of ultra-short asymmetric pulses are just starting to emerge. This review emphasizes the importance and role of the pulse shape for membrane permeabilization by EP.

Electroporation Response in Mitochondria and the Endoplasmic Reticulum to Nanosecond Electric Pulses: Numerical Assessments of Geometry, Proximity and Multi- Electrode Effects

“…This was hypothesized to arise from the higher displacement currents associated with a faster rising electric pulse. Other reports also indicate similar pulse-dependent biooutcomes 105 . Our prior modeling established that nanosecond excitation could rapidly induce large TMPs in the mitochondrion 47 .…”

Tissue Ablation Using Irreversible Electrolytic Electroporation with Reduced Voltage

“…Studies on the clinical application of IRE techniques have reported that the possibility of ventricular or atrial fibrillation and muscle contraction must be monitored carefully when high voltages are used during treatment owing to the possibility of additional undesirable consequences such as pain [19][20][21][22]. Thus, studies have been conducted to address these problems, including increasing the frequency with a nano-second level PW (H-FIRE) [19,20,24,28], applying a bipolar rectangular pulse [19,44], and optimizing the IRE electrode configuration, considering its shape and material [25,26]. However, these methods resulted in smaller ablation areas than conventional IRE owing to bipolar cancellation.…”

“…However, the variability in the treatment effect was high, the system was complex, and the risk of using high voltage was also inherent. Recently, with the development of highvoltage power semiconductor technologies and parts while simplifying the configuration of the systems, these treatments have become safe for the human body, and it is possible to generate various electric pulses, and thus, studies are carrying out new pulse shapes [44]. In this paper, a study was conducted on whether the voltage required for ablation could be lowered when an exponential decay waveform was consecutively applied after applying an IRE using only several square pulses, which have been traditionally used.…”

The state-of-the-art of atmospheric pressure plasma for transdermal drug delivery

“…To achieve electroporation, a transmembrane voltage of at least 0.2 V is required, typically ranging from 0.5 to 1 V [49]. The effectiveness of electroporation is highly influenced by various operational parameters such as pulse duration, number of pulses, and magnitude of the voltage [50,51].…”