Abstract
Electroporation is a powerful transfection technique that has been a major focus in biomedical research and clinical medicine. As a method long been used to transfect millions of cells at once, significant trade-off between delivery efficiency and cell viability still limits the technology from fulfilling its true potential. In recent years, the advancement of microfabrication and microfluidics technology has gained a significant momentum and transformed the landscape of electroporation, scaling this technique from the macroscale down to the microscale, enabling smaller and more efficient devices to gain better control of the electroporation process at the single cell level, thus enabling wider adaptation in a variety of research and development applications.
To gain a comprehensive view of this topic, this chapter will first look at the significance, advantages, and challenges of electroporation technique at large, followed by the review of the governing principles, with emphasis on cell membrane permeabilization, intracellular transport, and the membrane resealing dynamics. The second part of the chapter will transition into microscale electroporation and its advantages over macroscale electroporation as well as the trade-offs between delivery efficiency and cell viability. The third part of the chapter will be dedicated to reviewing legacy and recent innovative technologies developed to carry out single cell electroporation, from patch-clamping-inspired cell trapping approach to flow-driven electroporation in microfluidic channels. This chapter will culminate with the discussion on future trends, process automation, scalability, and commercialization strategies associated with single-cell electroporation technology.
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Zheng, M. (2019). Single-Cell Electroporation. In: Santra, T., Tseng, FG. (eds) Handbook of Single Cell Technologies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4857-9_15-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4857-9_15-1
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