Transfección de células por medio de ondas de choque

Abstract

Treatments for inherited and acquired diseases are pointing towards gene therapy, which depends on methods to introduce foreign genetic material into cells. Unfortunately, most of the methods available to allow incorporation of transgenes into the genome are not selective to target a particular population of cells. The present article describes the use of shock waves as a cell -- permeabilization method to load a reporter gene into cultured cells. Shock waves were generated by underwater electrical breakdown and focused on the vials containing cell suspension using an ellipsoidal reflector. Transfection was achieved due to acoustic cavitation generated inside the test vials after passage of each shock wave. The number of transfected cells was still low; nevertheless, our results show the feasibility of cell transfection by underwater shock waves.