Single cell nano-electroporation to laser induced photoporation: Novel approaches for cell therapy and diagnostics

The faculty to precisely distribute of peregrine cargo into single living cells is of great interest in cell biology and therapeutics research. Conventional bulk electroporation is widely used but has been kenned to cause high percentage of cell death and require high voltage sources. Microfluidic electroporation platforms can provide high distribution efficiency with high cell viability through better-controlled electric fields applied to cells. Here we develop micro/nano fabricated single cell electroporation platforms, which is an efficient and expeditious method for multi-nanolocalized single cell nanoelectroporation, where electroporation takes place on a multiple region of individual single cell membrane utilizing ITO nano-electrodes array. The gap between two nanoelectrodes are 70 nm with triangle tip diameter of 40 nm, which profound an electric field in a precise region of single cell membrane to distribute biomolecules with high transfection efficiency and high cell viability. On the other hand we developed photoporation predicated contrivances, where nano-second pulse laser is utilized to interact with metal or metal nanoparticles and form plasmonic nanobubbles, which expeditiously grew, coalesced and collapsed to induce an explosion, resulting vigorous fluid on the cell membrane. Thus plasma membrane can disrupt and form transient membrane pores, sanctioning the distribution of cargos from outside to inside the cell. Utilizing both of these techniques we prosperously distribute dyes, DNA, RNA, QDs and nanoparticles, bacteria in cancer cells as well as stem cell. These incipient approaches can sanction us to analyse different dyes/ biomolecules interaction in single living cell with spatial, temporal, and qualitative dosage control, which potentially applicable for medical diagnostics and therapeutic studies.

Author(s): Tuhin Subhra Santra

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