Genetically engineered HEK cells as a valuable tool for studying electroporation in excitable cells

Batista Napotnik, Tina (author), Kos, Bor (author), Jarm, Tomaž (author), Miklavčič, Damijan (author), O'Connor, Rodney P. (author), Rems, Lea (author)

Electric pulses used in electroporation-based treatments have been shown to affect the excitability of muscle and neuronal cells. However, understanding the interplay between electroporation and electrophysiological response of excitable cells is complex, since both ion channel gating and electroporation depend on dynamic changes in the transmembrane voltage (TMV). In this study, a genetically engineered human embryonic kidney cells expressing NaV1.5 and Kir2.1, a minimal complementary channels required for excitability (named S-HEK), was characterized as a simple cell model used for studying the effects of electroporation in excitable cells. S-HEK cells and their nonexcitable counterparts (NS-HEK) were exposed to 100 µs pulses of increasing electric field strength. Changes in TMV, plasma membrane permeability, and intracellular Ca2+ were monitored with fluorescence microscopy. We found that a very mild electroporation, undetectable with the classical propidium assay but associated with a transient increase in intracellular Ca2+, can already have a profound effect on excitability close to the electrostimulation threshold, as corroborated by multiscale computational modelling. These results are of great relevance for understanding the effects of pulse delivery on cell excitability observed in context of the rapidly developing cardiac pulsed field ablation as well as other electroporation-based treatments in excitable tissues.

• Language: English
• Keywords: electroporation, exitable cells, action potential, intacellular calcium
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 18 str.
• Numbering: 14, art. 720
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171185
• UDC: 602.621
• ISSN on article: 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-51073-5
• COBISS.SI-ID: 180220419
• Publication date in RUL: 18.08.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Scientific reports
• Shortened title: Sci. rep.
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• COBISS.SI-ID: 18727432

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: elektroporacija, vzdražne celice, akcijski potencial, znotrajcelični kalcij