| Abstract
| - In common electroporators, cells can be transfected with foreign genes by applying a 150−700 V pulse onthe cell suspension. Because of Joule heating, the cell survival rate is 10−20% in these elecroporators. In arecently developed electroporator, termed the low-voltage electroporator (LVEP), cells are partially embeddedin the pores of a micropore filter. In LVEP, cells can be transfected by applying 25 V or less under normalphysiological conditions at room temperature. The large increase in current density in the filter pores, producedby the reduction of current shunt pathways around each embedded cell, amplifies 1000-fold the local electricfield across the filter and results in a high-enough transmembrane voltage for cell electroporation. The Jouleheat generated in the filter pore is quickly dissipated toward the bulk solution on each side of the filter, andthus cell survival in the low-voltage electroporator is very high, about 98%, while the transfection efficiencyfor embedded cells is above 90%. In this paper, the phenomenological theory of LVEP is developed. Thetransmembrane voltage is calculated along the membrane of the cell for three different cell geometries. Thecell is either fully, partially, or not embedded in the filter pore. By means of the calculated transmembranevoltage, the distribution of electropores along the cell membrane is estimated. In agreement with theexperimental results, cells partially embedded in the filter pore can be electroporated by as low as 1.8−3.5V of applied voltage. In the case of 25 V applied voltage, 90% of the cell surface can be electroporated if thecell penetrates further than half of the length of the filter pore.
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