Experimental comparison of sonoporation and electroporation in cell transfection applications

An experimental study has been performed for cell suspensions to compare efficiency of cell transfection. It was demonstrated that electroporation was superior to sonoporation in terms of viability (65.8±2.3% vs 50.8±4.15%) and transfection efficiency (15.83±3.5% vs 7.53±0.4%) for Jurkat lymphocytes (nonprimary cells), and sonoporation was better in terms of viability (64.8±1.51% vs 53.7±1.53%) and transfection efficiency (2.73±0.21% vs 0.43±0.06%) for human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (primary cells). The electroporation was performed using a Gene Pulser® II Apparatus with voltage of 250 V, and the sonoporation was achieved using 2-MHz pulsed ultrasound exposure (ISPPA=80 W/cm2) assisted with encapsulated bubbles (Optison®).