The strategy of gene delivery into skeletal muscles has provided exciting avenues in identifying new potential therapeutics toward muscular disorders and addressing basic research questions in muscle physiology through overexpression and knockdown studies. In vivo electroporation methodology offers a simple, rapidly effective technique for the delivery of plasmid DNA into postmitotic skeletal muscle fibers and the ability to easily explore the molecular mechanisms of skeletal muscle plasticity. The purpose of this review is to describe how to robustly electroporate plasmid DNA into different hindlimb muscles of rodent models. Furthermore, key parameters (e.g., voltage, hyaluronidase, and plasmid concentration) that contribute to the successful introduction of plasmid DNA into skeletal muscle fibers will be discussed. In addition, details on processing tissue for immunohistochemistry and fiber cross-sectional area (CSA) analysis will be outlined. The overall goal of this review is to provide the basic and necessary information needed for successful implementation of in vivo electroporation of plasmid DNA and thus open new avenues of discovery research in skeletal muscle physiology.
Keywords: atrophy; electroporation; gene transfer; hypertrophy; protein synthesis.