Monitoring and control of inertial cavitation activity for enhancing ultrasound transfection: The SonInCaRe project

Abstract Sonoporation process, at the origin of ultrasound cell transfection, is ruled by the interaction between cells and cavitating bubbles. Due to the stochastic behavior of acoustic cavitation, there exists a need in ensuring a stable state of cavitation within a medium during cell transfection to enhance transfection efficiency and control mortality. The goal of the SonInCaRe project is thus to define a controlled-cavitation device in order to monitor, control and stabilize inertial cavitation activity during cell sonication in real-time. This device, based on a feedback loop acting in real-time, allows ensuring fixed cavitation conditions during a pulsed sonication. Its application to suspended and adherent cells transfection shows better reproducibility compared to the fixed acoustic intensity sonication. The regulation device thus provides a better control of cavitation activity and its bioeffects which are of crucial importance for clinical applications of ultrasound-mediated gene transfection.