Electroporation refers to exposure of cells to external electric field thatresults in transiently or permanently increased permeability of cell membranes. Cancer treatment, where local application of electroporation to tumor nodules is combined with chemotherapeutic drugs bleomycin or cisplatin is called electrochemotherapy. The antitumor effectiveness of electrochemotherapy is primarily based on direct killing of tumor cells due to the increased chemotherapeutic drug uptake, but other mechanisms, such as vascular disrupting action was also demonstrated. Our group is involved in elucidating the underlying mechanism of vascular disrupting action by studying the changes in cytoskeletal proteins after electrochemotherapy in endothelial cells by immunocytochemistry. In addition, metastatic potential and global changes in gene expression of melanoma cells that survived electrochemotherapy were also studied, demonstrating that metastatic potential of cells is not changed and that a very low percentage of genes are down or up regulated after electrochemotherapy, which further supports its safe use in the clinical setting. Another application of electroporation is delivery of plasmid DNA into the cells for gene therapy. Our group is involved in preparation of plasmid DNA with tissue specific promoters and without genes for antibiotic resistance, thus enabling safe use of gene therapy in line with USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European medicines Agency (EMA) recommendations.
