Electrical Measurements for Monitoring Electroporation

Biological material shows characteristic electrical behavior between 10 kHz and 10 MHz which is mostly governed by cells surrounded by insulating membranes.

Electroporation of cell membranes renders the generally highly resistive lipid structure conductive. This results in dramatic decrease of the low frequency impedance because ions can cross the membrane due to the electrically created aqueous pores. Moreover, there is a pronounced impact on conductivity of the extracellular medium due to an efflux of ions from the cell plasma.

Given the significant impedance changes due to electroporation, electrical characterization is a powerful tool for monitoring this process. Since the time course of electroporation is short compared to conventional impedance measurements and the material is driven into a non-linear range of the current/ voltage characteristics, only dynamic impedance measurements in presence of high dc-offset with sub-millisecond time resolution are suitable for this purpose.