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Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy for Rapid and Noninvasive Analysis of Skin Electroporation

  • Uwe Pliquett
  • Mark R. Prausnitz
Protocol
Part of the Methods in Molecular Medicine book series (MIMM, volume 37)

Abstract

Transient disruption of skin’s barrier properties using high-voltage pulses involves complex changes in skin microstructure believed to be due to electroporation. Electroporation of cell membranes is a well known phenomenon which has found extensive use as a method of DNA transfection in biological laboratories (1, 2, 3). More recently, it has been shown that the multilamellar lipid bilayer membranes found in skin can also be electroporated (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). The dramatic and reversible increases in skin permeability caused by electroporation indicate that drugs might be delivered transdermally at significantly enhanced rates. Especially for macromolecules, such as protein- and gene-based drugs, electroporation-mediated transdermal drug delivery could be an important pharmaceutical approach.

Keywords

Stratum Corneum Skin Resistance Outer Electrode Skin Impedance Viable Epidermis 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Humana Press Inc. 2000

Authors and Affiliations

  • Uwe Pliquett
    • 1
  • Mark R. Prausnitz
    • 2
  1. 1.University of BielefeldBielefeldGermany
  2. 2.Schools of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical EngineeringGeorgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta

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