Electroporation is already an established technique in several areas of medicine, but many of its biotechnological applications have only started to emerge; we review here some of the most promising. We outline electroporation as a phenomenon and then proceed to applications, first outlining the best established – the use of reversible electroporation for heritable genetic modifi- cation of microorganisms (electrotransformation), and then explore recent advances in applying electroporation for inactivation of microorganisms, extraction of biomolecules, and fast drying of biomass. We conclude our review with a discussion of the main challenges and future perspectives.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11070548
On the molecular level, the mechanism of electroporation is not yet fully elucidated, although a considerable body of experiments and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were performed on model membranes. Here we present combined theoretical and experimental results of electroporation of palmitoyl-oleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPC) bilayers with incorporated polyoxyethylene glycol (C12E8) surfactants. The experimental results show a slight increase of the capacitance and a decrease of the voltage breakdown upon addition of C12E8 to POPC bilayers. These results were qualitatively confirmed by the MD simulations. They later revealed that the polyoxyethylene glycol molecules play a major role in the formation of hydrophilic pores in the bilayers above the electroporation threshold.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10904404