Microscale electroporation: challenges and perspectives for clinical applications

Abstract

Microscale engineering plays a significant role in developing tools for biological applications by miniaturizing devices and providing controllable microenvironments for in vitro cell research. Miniaturized devices offer numerous benefits in comparison to their macroscale counterparts, such as lower use of expensive reagents, biomimetic environments, and the ability to manipulate single cells. Microscale electroporation is one of the main beneficiaries of microscale engineering as it provides spatial and temporal control of various electrical parameters. Microscale electroporation devices can be used to reduce limitations associated with the conventional electroporation approaches such as variations in the local pH, electric field distortion, sample contamination, and the difficulties in transfecting and maintaining the viability of desired cell types. Here, we present an overview of recent advances of the microscale electroporation methods and their applications in biology, as well as current challenges for its use for clinical applications. We categorize microscale electroporation into microchannel and microcapillary electroporation. Microchannel-based electroporation can be used for transfecting cells within microchannels under dynamic flow conditions in a controlled and high-throughput fashion. In contrast, microcapillary-based electroporation can be used for transfecting cells within controlled reaction chambers under static flow conditions. Using these categories we examine the use of microscale electroporation for clinical applications related to HIV-1, stem cells, cancer and other diseases and discuss the challenges in further advancing this technology for use in clinical medicine and biology.

A microfluidic biochip for the nanoporation of living cells

“…The main benefits of these technologies consist in their miniaturization and parallelization capabilities, as well as real-time observation in the case where transparent materials are used for the device fabrication. In the case of electroporation, miniaturized electrodes permit to expose cells on a chip to microsecond duration pulses (typically 100 s) and intense electric fields (typically 1 kV/cm) (Huang and Rubinsky 2001;Krishnaswamy et al 2007;Le Pioufle et al 2000;Lee et al 2009;Wang et al 2009). However, the delivery of the nsPEF (typically 3-10 nanoseconds, 20-45 kV/cm) to the cells without deformation of spectral and temporal contents requires a specific design.…”

Non-Viral Delivery Systems in Gene Therapy and Vaccine Development

“…One of the methods that improve DNA penetration of the cell is electroporation [Lee et al, 2009;, Harrison et al, 1998;Rossini et al, 2002;Ahmad et al, 2009;Collins et al, 2006;Kang et al, 2011;]. In vivo use of electroporation is done by injecting naked DNA followed by electric pulses from electrodes that are located in situ in the target tissues.…”

Continuous medium exchange and optically induced electroporation of cells in an integrated microfluidic system

“…This high voltage and the relatively complicated protocol can easily damage the target cells; this protocol also presents a risk of injury to the operator. Hence, the cell viability rate after traditional electroporation is typically less than 50% for mammalian cell lines 12 .…”