Exposure to electrical fields can reversibly increase the electrical conductivity and permeability of a cell membrane, which regulates and directs the exchange of materials and information between the cell and its environment. If cell membranes (or artificial lipid membranes) are exposed to a field pulse of high intensity and short duration (ns to μs), local electrical breakdown occurs in them. This electrical breakdown is associated with a large permeability change in the membrane, which is such that substances or particles (up to the size of genes) which cannot normally permeate through the membrane, are able to traverse the membrane into the cell. The original properties of the membrane are restored within μs to min, depending on the experimental conditions and the membrane properties.
Electrical breakdown in the zone of contact between the membranes of cells (or lipid vesicles), which have been made to adhere to each other by the action of weak inhomogeneous alternating electrical fields, leads to fusion of these cells with formation of a single cell having new functional characteristics. The electrical fusion method is very mild, and the yield of fused cells is high.
The electrically induced fusion and entrapment of membrane-impermeable substances and genes in cells provide a new tool for the productions of a wide range of cells with manipulated functions, which could be used (or are being used) for the solution of a number of problems in cell biology, medicine and technology.
The application of electrical membrane breakdown to clinical diagnostics, the development of cellular carrier systems for the selective transport of drugs to a site of action within the organism and the potential applications of electrically induced fusion for breeding salt-tolerant crop plants for converting solar energy into ethanol, for synthesizing natural materials and manipulating genes, are described.