Observation of Extremely Low Transmembrane Potential of Cells in Electroporation Using Microchips

Abstract

We develop a micromachined electroporation chip successfully performing cell electroporation under a very low applied electric field, which yielded an extremely low transmembrane potential to create membrane pores. The transmembrane potentials of four different cells obtained from the experimental results were one to two orders of magnitude smaller than 0.2 V, which is the lowest transmembrane potential reported in the current literatures since early 1980s. The four different cells were successfully transfected under multi-pulse or single pulse electric field stimulation. The lowest applied voltage used was 0.05 V or 0.1 V for four different cells which resulted in the estimated maximum transmembrane potentials lower than 20 mV in all cases. The lowest transmembrane potential was found at 6 mV for Huh-7 cells (human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line).