Compact Cell Sonoporation Device for Performing Sonoporation Experiments on Adherent Cells

This paper reports a compact sonoporation device for 24 and 96 well cell culture plates. The proposed device is designed to be used in in vitro studies on adherent cells. K-Wave toolbox was used to model the pressure field and determine a uniform region where cells could be then exposed to ultrasound. The uniformity was confirmed using measurements by a needle hydrophone. The sonoporation device, which included six 30 mm planar transducers, was designed and built. The cell culture plate was placed in the sonoporation device at a height where cells were exposed to uniform acoustic pressure. Three embodiments of the sonoporation device working at 330 kHz, 500 kHz and 1 MHz were built. The results show that more than 80% of the well-area had a measured acoustic pressure at a set value ±25%. The sonoporation device was validated on a dermal mouse fibroblast model. The exposures were performed at 50% duty cycle, 7Hz repetition frequency and pressure values from 0 kPa to 50 kPa for a total exposure time of 1 and 3 minutes. Live/dead viability test showed that the tested conditions did not significantly affect mortality rate, except for 1 MHz, where an increase in death rate was observed.