Cancer is the leading cause of death in the developed world, alongside circulatory diseases. According to the IARC, 19.3 million people worldwide were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, and 10 million succumbed to cancer. Cancer, or malignancy or malignant tumour, is a polygenic disease that arises as a result of a mutation or epigenetic change in the genome of a single cell, and which currently has no cure. A promising new approach to cancer treatment is gene therapy, in which genes, gene parts, oligonucleotides, miRNAs and siRNAs are administered into tumour cells to silence, down-regulate, modify, or repair target cells. Therapy is administered in vivo or ex vivo using delivery systems or vectors, which are roughly divided into viral and non-viral. The electroporation of naked plasmid DNA has great potential for cell transfection due to its safety and the highest efficiency among non-viral vectors. Electroporation is the phenomenon of pore formation on the cell membrane resulting from the exposure of cells to short high-voltage pulses. The permeabilised membrane allows the transport of molecules of different sizes into the nucleus. After the electric field has ceased, the membrane returns to its original state within a certain time (from a few milliseconds to a few minutes) in reversible electroporation. Electroporation is used in immune electrogene therapy, where IL-12 plasmid DNA is injected into tumour cells. This is a cytokine that is a very potent inducer of antitumour immunity. Its therapeutic potential is already being tested at both pre-clinical and clinical levels.
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