Tissue electroporation: quantification and analysis of heterogeneous transport in multicellular environments.

Although electroporation is gaining increased attention as a technology to enhance clinical chemotherapy and gene therapy of tissues, direct measurements of electroporation-mediated transport in multicellular environments are lacking. In this study, we used multicellular tumor spheroids of DU145 prostate cancer cells as a model tissue to measure the levels and distribution of molecular uptake in a multicellular environment as a function of electrical and other parameters. These measurements, and subsequent analysis, were used to test the hypothesis that cells in a multicellular environment respond to electroporation in a heterogeneous manner that differs from isolated cells in suspension due to differences in cell state, local solute concentration, and local electric field.