Strong external electric field can destabilize membranes and induce formation of pores thus increasing membrane permeability. The phenomenon is known as membrane electroporation, sometimes referred to also as dielectric breakdown or electropermeabilization. The structural changes involving rearrangement of the phospholipid bilayer presumably lead to the formation of aqueous pores, which increas...

It is becoming increasingly apparent that electroporation is the most effective way to introduce plasmid DNA or siRNA into primary cells. The Gene Pulser MXcell electroporation system and Gene Pulser electroporation buffer were specifically developed to transfect nucleic acids into mammalian cells and difficult-to-transfect cells, such as primary and stem cells.This video demonstrates how to es...

It remained very difficult to manipulate gene expression in chick embryos until the advent of in ovo electroporation which enabled the induction of both gain-of-function, and recently loss-of-function, of a gene of interest at a specific developmental stage. Gain-of-function by electroporation is so effective that it has become widely adopted in developmental studies in the chick. Recently, it ...

Electroporation of plasmid and chromosomal DNAs were tested in Haemophilus influenzae because of an interest in introducing DNA into mutants that are deficient in competence for transformation. The initial experiments were designed to investigate and optimize conditions for electroporation of H. influenzae. Plasmid DNA was introduced into the competence proficient strain Rd and its competence-d...

Electroporation of cells with short, high-voltage pulses causes a transient permeabilization of cell membranes that permits passage of otherwise nonpermeating ions and molecules. In this study, we illustrate how electroporation with isotonic calcium can achieve highly effective cancer cell kill in vivo. Calcium electroporation elicited dramatic antitumor responses in which 89% of treated tumors...

In vitro study of primary neuronal cultures allows for quantitative analyses of neurite outgrowth. In order to study how genetic alterations affect neuronal process outgrowth, shRNA or cDNA constructs can be introduced into primary neurons via chemical transfection or viral transduction. However, with primary cortical cells, a heterogeneous pool of cell types (glutamatergic neurons from differe...

Electroporation creates transient pores in the plasma membrane to introduce macromolecules within a cell or cell population. Generally, electrical pulses are delivered between two electrodes separated from each other, making electroporation less likely to be localised. We have developed a new device combining local pressure ejection with local electroporation through a double-barrelled glass mi...

A magnetically controlled elastically driven electroporation phenomenon, or magneto-elasto-electroporation (MEEP), is discovered while studying the interactions between core-shell magnetoelectric nanoparticles (CSMEN) and biological cells in the presence of an a.c. magnetic field. In this paper we report the effect of MEEP observed via a series of in-vitro experiments using core (CoFe2O4)-shell...

The direct transfer of genetic material into cells by electroporation can be described in physicochemical terms as an electroporation-resealing hysteresis. The hysteresis concept includes unidirectional state transitions of the membrane, coupled to electrodiffusive migration of DNA through cell wall structures and electroporated plasma membranes. Deeper insight into electroporation phenomena su...