Employing electroporation for controlled drug release in targeted cancer therapy
Employing electroporation for controlled drug release in targeted cancer therapy lead image
Targeted drug delivery is poised to revolutionize medicine by increasing the therapeutic power of medications while minimizing their side effects. To make this future possible, the medication must release in the right location and in a controlled manner. Peng et al. employed irreversible electroporation (IRE) to direct the release of drugs from loaded red blood cells.
When cells are subjected to pulsed electric fields, they develop small holes in their outer membranes. This process, called electroporation, increases the flow of particles into and out of the cell. At high electric field strength, these holes become permanent. According to the team’s finite element simulation, the number of pores and their permeability increase with the strength of the electric field.
“Consequently, we were able to derive a formula to calculate drug release in a controlled manner,” said author Ming Wu.
While in vitro experiments confirmed this relationship, implementing IRE in vivo carries another concern: the strong electric fields can induce muscle contractions and cardiac arrhythmias. To avoid this, the team employed high-frequency alternating polarity pulses.
“Anti-cancer experiments revealed that these pulsed electric fields efficiently controlled drug release and effectively ablated tumors,” said Wu. “This resulted in significant tumor growth inhibition, with no recurrence observed for up to 90 days in a mouse tumor model.”
The team plans to further their research into using this method to fight cancer.
“In our future research, we intend to assess the therapeutic efficacy in orthotopic models and conduct tumor rechallenge experiments,” said Wu. “Simultaneously, we will delve into electric field-related immunological studies, exploring the impact of pulsed electric fields on the modulation of the tumor microenvironment and immune responses.”
Source: “Scheduled dosage regimen by irreversible electroporation of loaded erythrocytes for cancer treatment,” by Wencheng Peng, Yaqi Yue, Yuting Zhang, Hao Li, Cao Zhang, Peiyuan Wang, Yanbing Cao, Xiaolong Liu, Shoulong Dong, Ming Wu, and Chen-Guo Yao, APL Bioengineering (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0174353 .
