Phenomenological Theory of Low-Voltage Electroporation. Electric Field Calculations

Abstract

In common electroporators, cells can be transfected with foreign genes by applying a 150−700 V pulse on the cell suspension. Because of Joule heating, the cell survival rate is 10−20% in these elecroporators. In a recently developed electroporator, termed the low-voltage electroporator (LVEP), cells are partially embedded in the pores of a micropore filter. In LVEP, cells can be transfected by applying 25 V or less under normal physiological conditions at room temperature. The large increase in current density in the filter pores, produced by the reduction of current shunt pathways around each embedded cell, amplifies 1000-fold the local electric field across the filter and results in a high-enough transmembrane voltage for cell electroporation. The Joule heat generated in the filter pore is quickly dissipated toward the bulk solution on each side of the filter, and thus cell survival in the low-voltage electroporator is very high, about 98%, while the transfection efficiency for embedded cells is above 9...