Calcium Imaging of Sonoporation of Mammalian Cells.

Ultrasound mediated delivery of compounds is a relatively recent development in drug delivery and gene transfection techniques. Due to the lack of methods for real-time monitoring of sonoporation at the cellular level, the efficiency of drug/gene delivery and sonoporation associated side effects, such as the loss of cell viability and enhanced apoptosis, have been studied only through post US exposure analyses, requiring days for cell incubation. Furthermore, because microporation appears to be transient in nature, it was not possible to correlate transfection with microporation on an individual cellular basis. By studying the role of calcium in the cell and using fluorescent calcium imaging to study sonoporation it is possible to quantify both cell porosity and sonoporation side effects. Since both post sonoporation cell survival and delivery efficiency are related to the dynamic process of the cell membrane poration, calcium imaging of sonoporation will provide important knowledge to obtain improved understanding of sonoporation mechanism. Our experimental results demonstrated the feasibility of calcium imaging of sonoporation in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. We have measured the changes in the intracellular calcium concentration using Fura-2, a fluorescent probe, which indicate influx or flow of Calcium across the cell membrane. Analysis of data identified key aspects in the dynamic sonoporation process including the formation of pores in the cell membrane, and the relative temporal duration of the pores and their resealing. These observations are obtained through the analysis of the rate the calcium concentration changes within the cells, making it possible to visualize membrane opening and repair in real-time through such changes in the intracellular calcium concentration. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]