Electrical fusion of cells and nucleiin vitro: A preliminary note

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The electrical fusion of male skin fibroblasts of the Indian muntlac (Muntiacus muntjak) in vitro is described. Fusion of cell nuclei in the resulting multinucleated giant cells was observed after application of up to ten additional DC pulses. Electrical fusion of bovine erythrocytes and alveolar macrophages is also described. Ceil fusion can be obtained without the use of protease pretreatment, but the yield of fused cells is about 20 times lower than with prior use of proteases.

The electrofusion of cells

“…A more exact expression due to Prof. Dr. Freidrich A . Sauer of the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany, and derived not on the less precise basis of energy conservation as was the above expression, but on the conservation of momentum so as to better account for frictional losses, etc., is (11) where b = (K& -Kl,tot)/Kl,,,,,, K,,, = K + js/(e,W), the complex relative dielectric constant, b* is the complex conjugate of b, and s is the specific conductivity. The two expressions agree fairly well for situations in which the conductivity is not too high.…”