# Electric pulse exposure reduces AAV8 dosage required to transduce HepG2 cells

## TL;DR

Electric pulses significantly reduce the amount of virus needed to deliver genes into liver cells in the lab.

## Contribution

Electric pulses enhance AAV8 transduction efficiency in hepatocytes, reducing required viral dosage by over 50-fold.

## Key findings

- Electric pulses increase EGFP expression in HepG2 cells at lower AAV8 dosages.
- Transduction efficiency improved with single 80-ms pulses at 375 V/cm intensity.
- Findings suggest potential for reduced AAV vector doses in gene therapy applications.

## Abstract

We demonstrate that applying electric field pulses to hepatocytes, in vitro, in the presence of enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-expressing adeno-associated virus (AAV8) vectors reduces the viral dosage required for a given transduction level by more than 50-fold, compared to hepatocytes exposed to AAV8-EGFP vectors without electric field pulse exposure. We conducted 48 experimental observations across 8 exposure conditions in standard well plates. The electric pulse exposures involved single 80-ms pulses with 375 V/cm field intensity. Our study suggests that electric pulse exposure results in enhanced EGFP expression in cells, indicative of increased transduction efficiency. The enhanced transduction observed in our study, if translated successfully to an in vivo setting, would be a promising indication of potential reduction in the required dose of AAV vectors. Understanding the effects of electric field pulses on AAV transduction in vitro is an important preliminary step.