Chapter 10
Microfluidic Device for Localized Electroporation
Justin Brooks, Arian Jaberi, and Ruiguo Yang
Abstract
Electroporation is a common method of transfection due to its relatively low risk and high transfection
efficiency. The most common method of electroporation is bulk electroporation which is easily performed
on large quantities of cells yet results in variable levels of viability and transfection efficiency across the
population. Localized electroporation is an alternative that can be administered on a similar scale but results
in much more consistent with higher quality transfection and higher cell viability. This chapter discusses the
creation and use of a simple and cost-effective device using porous membrane for performing localized
electroporation.
Key words Lab-on-a-chip, Localized electroporation, Microfluidic, Cell transfection
1 Introduction
Transfection is the transfer of nucleic acids into cells for gene
therapy. Common methods for transfection include viral, nanoparticles, nanostructure penetration, and electroporation. Conventional carrier-mediated delivery methods using engineered
viruses, lipids and conjugated nanoparticles are limited by sizes
and types of molecules, and are often cell specific [1]. More importantly, they may introduce undesirable and unsafe mutagenesis of
the cell, not to mention significant cytotoxicity [2]. Physical methods such as electroporation enables delivery of molecules into a cell
by modulating cell membrane permeability, specifically by inducing
transient and reversible nanopores in the cell membrane [3]. Electroporation is widely utilized due to safety concerns associated with
viral transfection and a higher transfection efficiency than other
nonviral methods [4]. Bulk electroporation executes a high voltage
in a cuvette filled with suspended cells [5]. The process results in
multitude of cell damage from the strong electrical field, leading to
large amount of cell death [6]. Similar to carrier mediated delivery,
current electroporation techniques are only applicable to a population of cells, where uniformity and precision in dosage are beyond
Shulin Li et al. (eds.), Electroporation Protocols: Microorganism, Mammalian System, and Nanodevice,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2050, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9740-4_10,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
91
Microfluidic Device for Localized Electroporation
Justin Brooks, Arian Jaberi, and Ruiguo Yang
Abstract
Electroporation is a common method of transfection due to its relatively low risk and high transfection
efficiency. The most common method of electroporation is bulk electroporation which is easily performed
on large quantities of cells yet results in variable levels of viability and transfection efficiency across the
population. Localized electroporation is an alternative that can be administered on a similar scale but results
in much more consistent with higher quality transfection and higher cell viability. This chapter discusses the
creation and use of a simple and cost-effective device using porous membrane for performing localized
electroporation.
Key words Lab-on-a-chip, Localized electroporation, Microfluidic, Cell transfection
1 Introduction
Transfection is the transfer of nucleic acids into cells for gene
therapy. Common methods for transfection include viral, nanoparticles, nanostructure penetration, and electroporation. Conventional carrier-mediated delivery methods using engineered
viruses, lipids and conjugated nanoparticles are limited by sizes
and types of molecules, and are often cell specific [1]. More importantly, they may introduce undesirable and unsafe mutagenesis of
the cell, not to mention significant cytotoxicity [2]. Physical methods such as electroporation enables delivery of molecules into a cell
by modulating cell membrane permeability, specifically by inducing
transient and reversible nanopores in the cell membrane [3]. Electroporation is widely utilized due to safety concerns associated with
viral transfection and a higher transfection efficiency than other
nonviral methods [4]. Bulk electroporation executes a high voltage
in a cuvette filled with suspended cells [5]. The process results in
multitude of cell damage from the strong electrical field, leading to
large amount of cell death [6]. Similar to carrier mediated delivery,
current electroporation techniques are only applicable to a population of cells, where uniformity and precision in dosage are beyond
Shulin Li et al. (eds.), Electroporation Protocols: Microorganism, Mammalian System, and Nanodevice,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2050, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9740-4_10,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
91