Abstract
In this work, a novel electroporation system (electroporator) is presented, which is capable of forming high frequency pulses in a broad range of parameters (65 ns–100 µs). The electroporator supports voltages up to 3 kV and currents up to 40 A and is based on H-bridge circuit topology. A synchronized double crowbar driving sequence is introduced to generate short nanosecond range pulses independently of the electroporator load. The resultant circuit generates pulses with repetition frequencies up to 5 MHz and supports unipolar, bipolar, and asymmetrical pulse sequences with arbitrary waveforms. The shortest pulse duration step is hardware limited to 33 ns. The electroporator was experimentally tested on the H69AR human lung cancer cell line using 20 kV/cm bipolar and unipolar 100 ns–1 μs pulses. Based on a YO-PRO-1 permeabilization assay, it was determined that the electroporator is suitable for applied research on electroporation. The system offers high flexibility in experimental design to trigger various electroporation-based phenomena.
Highlights
Electroporation is a transient or permanent increase in biological cell membrane permeability when subjected to high intensity electric field pulses [1]
Recent developments show the high potential of the high frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE) methodology when sequences of high frequency pulses are used to permeabilize the cells [18,19,20]
In this work, a novel electroporator has been presented, which is based on H-bridge circuit topology and the double-crowbar driving technique
Summary
Electroporation is a transient or permanent increase in biological cell membrane permeability when subjected to high intensity electric field pulses [1]. The development of pulsed power systems for electroporation, known as electroporators, is constant [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. With the development of semiconductor technology, the area of electroporation applications is transitioning towards a shorter pulse range (i.e., use of nanosecond pulses) [11,12,13,14]. The short but high intensity pulses can target intracellular structures without porating the cell itself [15,16]. The 100 kHz–10 MHz pulse repetition range is poorly covered due to a lack of technological infrastructure
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