Summary: UCLA researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering have developed a photothermal platform for precisely opening a cell membrane to deliver cargo into cells. Title: High-Throughput Cargo Delivery Into Live Cells Using Photothermal Platforms Background: Transferring cargo like proteins, nucleotides and particles into cells is valuable in various fields of biology from synthetic biology to clinical therapies. However, it is difficult to achieve controlled cutting of fragile, elastic, and rapidly healing mammalian cell membranes, hindering this process.. Often, the frequency of successful cargo uptake is low, limiting the intended cellular function. Current methods of cargo delivery that utilize pH and enzymatic techniques are known to cause cargo degradation, while viral and chemical methods sharply decrease cell viability after successful uptake. Regardless of the method, the pore size and uniformity of current delivery techniques are cargo-size prohibitive, and users experience efficiency loss as the cargo size increases. A technology that can simultaneously deliver DNA and other cargoes into large numbers of cells is needed to obtain stable cell populations.
Innovation: Researchers in the Chiou lab in UCLA’s Department of Mechanical Engineering have developed a photothermal cargo delivery platform to reliably and quickly induce cellular uptake. This platform utilizes laser-generated micro-bubbles to open large, micron-sized pores in cell membranes without sacrificing viability. The pores are large enough for supersized cargo like microbeads and organelles. Using this technology, simultaneous delivery to over one million cells is possible within a few seconds. Unlike current delivery methods, this “photothermic nanoblade” offers ~50% delivery efficiency with a cell viability of over 90%. These advantages are realized for cargo spanning a wide range of sizes from single molecules to multi-micrometer-length bacteria.
Patent:
US10982217B2
US20210207150A1 Potential Applications: • Cell transfection • Drug delivery • Live-cell imaging
Advantages: • Wide range of cell and cargo types • Maintenance of cell viability (>90%) • High speed, throughput, efficiency o >106 delivery sites over an area of 1cm x 1cm o >106 cells in a few seconds
State of Development: The inventors have developed the microdevice-based platform and demonstrated its efficacy with various relevant cargo types on multiple mammalian cell types.
Related Publications: 1. Wu, Ting-Hsiang, et al. "Photothermal nanoblade for large cargo delivery into mammalian cells." Analytical chemistry 83.4 (2011): 1321-1327. 2. Wu, Ting-Hsiang, et al. "Direct nuclear delivery of DNA by photothermal nanoblade." Journal of Laboratory Automation 20.6 (2015): 659-662.
Reference: UCLA Case No. 2013-158
Lead Inventor: Eric Chiou, UCLA Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering