Measuring the potential energy barrier to lipid bilayer electroporation

Jason T Sengel; Mark I Wallace

doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0227

Measuring the potential energy barrier to lipid bilayer electroporation

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017 Aug 5;372(1726):20160227. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0227.

Authors

Jason T Sengel¹, Mark I Wallace²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Chemistry Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, 12 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TA, UK.
² Department of Chemistry, King's College London, Britannia House, 7 Trinity Street, London, SE1 1DB, UK mark.wallace@kcl.ac.uk.

Abstract

Electroporation is a common tool for gene transfection, tumour ablation, sterilization and drug delivery. Using experimental methods, we explore the temperature dependence of electropore formation in a model membrane system (droplet-interface bilayers), using optical single-channel recording to image the real-time gating of individual electropores. We investigate the influence of the agarose substrate on electropores formed in this system. Furthermore, by examining the temperature-dependent kinetics of pore opening and closure we are able to estimate a barrier to pore opening in 1,2-diphytanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPhPC) membranes to be 25.0 ± 8.3 k_BT, in agreement with previous predictions. Overall these measurements help support the toroidal model of membrane electroporation.This article is part of the themed issue 'Membrane pores: from structure and assembly, to medicine and technology'.

Keywords: DPhPC; droplet interface bilayer; electroporation; energy barrier; optical microscopy; optical single channel recording.

MeSH terms

Electroporation*
Kinetics
Lipid Bilayers / chemistry*
Phosphatidylcholines / chemistry*

Substances

Lipid Bilayers
Phosphatidylcholines
1,2-diphytanoylphosphatidylcholine