Photoacoustic transfection of DNA encoding GFP

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Alexandre D.
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Serpa, Carlos, Arnaut, Luís G.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-37759-1
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/107380; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37759-1
• topic: Animals; COS Cells; Cell Membrane; Chlorocebus aethiops; Green Fluorescent Proteins; Humans; Photoacoustic Techniques; Plasmids; Transfection

Photoacoustic transfection consists in the use of photoacoustic waves, generated in the thermoelastic expansion of a confined material absorbing a short pulse of a laser, to produce temporary mechanical deformations of the cell membrane and facilitate the delivery of plasmid DNA into cells. We show that high stress gradients, produced when picosecond laser pulses with a fluence of 100 mJ/cm2 are absorbed by piezophotonic materials, enable transfection of a plasmid DNA encoding Green Fluorescent Protein (gWizGFP, 3.74 MDa) in COS-7 monkey fibroblast cells with an efficiency of 5% at 20 °C, in 10 minutes. We did not observe significant cytotoxicity under these conditions. Photoacoustic transfection is scalable, affordable, enables nuclear localization and the dosage is easily controlled by the laser parameters.