A Flow-Through Cell Electroporation Device for Rapidly and Efficiently Transfecting Massive Amounts of Cells in vitro and ex vivo

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 18469
• Main Authors: Zhao, Deyao, Huang, Dong, Li, Yang, Wu, Mengxi, Zhong, Wenfeng, Cheng, Qiang, Wang, Xiaoxia, Wu, Yidi, Zhou, Xiao, Wei, Zewen, Li, Zhihong, Liang, Zicai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 05-01-2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 42/109; 631/1647/2300; 639/166/985; 96/35; Animals; Cell Line; Cell lines; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Electric fields; Electrodes; Electroporation; Electroporation - instrumentation; Electroporation - methods; Erythrocytes; Erythrocytes - metabolism; Female; Flow rates; Gene Expression; Green Fluorescent Proteins - genetics; High flow; High voltage; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mice; Microfluidics; multidisciplinary; Plasma; Plasmids - genetics; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Science; Transfection; Transfection - instrumentation; Transfection - methods; Voltage
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep18469

Continuous cell electroporation is an appealing non-viral approach for genetically transfecting a large number of cells. Yet the traditional macro-scale devices suffer from the unsatisfactory transfection efficiency and/or cell viability due to their high voltage, while the emerging microfluidic electroporation devices is still limited by their low cell processing speed. Here we present a flow-through cell electroporation device integrating large-sized flow tube and small-spaced distributed needle electrode array. Relatively large flow tube enables high flow rate, simple flow characterization and low shear force, while well-organized needle array electrodes produce an even-distributed electric field with low voltage. Thus the difficulties for seeking the fine balance between high flow rate and low electroporation voltage were steered clear. Efficient
in vitro
electrotransfection of plasmid DNA was demonstrated in several hard-to-transfect cell lines. Furthermore, we also explored
ex vivo
electroporated mouse erythrocyte as the carrier of RNA. The strong ability of RNA loading and short exposure time of freshly isolated cells jointly ensured a high yield of valid carrier erythrocytes, which further successfully delivered RNA into targeted tissue. Both
in vitro
and
ex vivo
electrotransfection could be accomplished at high cell processing speed (20 million cells per minute) which remarkably outperforms previous devices.