Water influx and cell swelling after nanosecond electropermeabilization

Two-dimensional nanosecond electric field mapping based on cell electropermeabilization

Nanosecond, megavolt-per-meter electric pulses cause permeabilization of cells to small molecules, programmed cell death (apoptosis) in tumor cells, and are under evaluation as a treatment for skin cancer. We use nanoelectroporation and fluorescence imaging to construct two-dimensional maps of the electric field associated with delivery of 15 ns, 10 kV pulses to monolayers of the human prostate...

Impact of external medium conductivity on cell membrane electropermeabilization by microsecond and nanosecond electric pulses

The impact of external medium conductivity on the efficiency of the reversible permeabilisation caused by pulsed electric fields was investigated. Pulses of 12 ns, 102 ns or 100 μs were investigated. Whenever permeabilisation could be detected after the delivery of one single pulse, media of lower conductivity induced more efficient reversible permeabilisation and thus independently of the medi...

Reproducibility after de-swelling and re-swelling

Cell membrane electropermeabilization with arbitrary pulse waveforms.

xposure of a biological cell to an electric field can produce a variety of responses [1]-[6]. If the field strength exceeds a certain threshold value, this leads to a large transient increase in membrane conductivity and permeability for ions and molecules (electropermeabilization, often also named electroporation) or to fusion of adjacent cells (electrofusion) [5], [6]. Nowadays, these phenome...

Transport of charged small molecules after electropermeabilization — drift and diffusion

Background Applications of electric-field-induced permeabilization of cells range from cancer therapy to wastewater treatment. A unified understanding of the underlying mechanisms of membrane electropermeabilization, however, has not been achieved. Protocols are empirical, and models are descriptive rather than predictive, which hampers the optimization and expansion of electroporation-based te...