Microbubble-Enhanced Cell Membrane Permeability in High Gravity Field

Cell permeability controls the transportation of extracellular materials through cell membranes, which plays a critical role in drug and gene delivery. This work reports an innovative method to enhance the cell permeability through cell-bubble interactions in a high gravity field. In the presence of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cellular and molecular bioengineering 2013-09, Vol.6 (3), p.266-278
Main Authors: He, Chuan, Gu, Quanrong, Zeng, Hongbo, Zhang, Hao, Huang, Min, Yang, Xiaoyan, Xing, James, Chen, Jie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioengineering
Biological and Medical Physics
Biomaterials
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology
Biophysics
Cavitation
Cell Biology
Cellular biology
Engineering
Fluid flow
Fluid mechanics
Gravitational fields
Hydrodynamics
Membranes
Microorganisms
Permeability
Pores
Scanning electron microscopy
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Summary:Cell permeability controls the transportation of extracellular materials through cell membranes, which plays a critical role in drug and gene delivery. This work reports an innovative method to enhance the cell permeability through cell-bubble interactions in a high gravity field. In the presence of microbubbles, the cell membrane permeability of mammalian cells was significantly increased in the high gravity field, and up to 80% THP-1 and 70% MCF-7 cells were permeabilized by using FITC-Dextran with average molecular weight of 40 and 70 kDa as fluorescent markers which were found to locate in both cytoplasm and cell nucleus by using a confocal microscope. Micro-scale pores were detected on the cell membrane by a scanning electron microscope after the cell-microbubble interactions in the high gravity field. The delivery efficiency of FITC-Dextran could be further enhanced in gravity field of higher strength and in solutions with higher volume fraction of microbubbles, though the cell viability would also fall under extreme conditions. A simplified model was proposed to compare the contributions of surface forces (i.e., Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) interaction force and membrane undulation force) with hydrodynamic force associated with cell-bubble interactions in the high gravity field. The hydrodynamic force was found to dominate the cell-bubble interaction while the DLVO force and membrane undulation force only play an important role at small separation (
ISSN:1865-5025
1865-5033
DOI:10.1007/s12195-013-0279-6