Conductivity Uncertainty Impact on the Assessment of Efficacy in Electroporation Experiments

Electroporation of biological tissues induced by high-intensity, short-duration voltage pulses modify tissue permeability to molecules and ions allowing applications like drug delivery and gene therapy. Voltage pulses generate an electric field inside the tissue that increases its electrical conductivity. The value of the tissue conductivity is used to assess the efficacy of the adopted experimental electroporation protocol that depends on voltage amplitude, pulse duration and frequency and number of pulses. Different protocols may lead to huge variation of conductivity. However, protocols are often compared without taking into account uncertainties associated to the measurement system. This is addressed using potato tissue as a typical biological model to assess the efficacy of the pulse characteristics and application protocol. In this research, the variation of potato tissue conductivity is examined along with comprehensive uncertainty analyses to address reliability and evidence differences in adopted electroporation protocols. The uncertainty assessment accounts for all elements in the measurement chain, including signal generation, environmental factors, and data acquisition systems. Using statistical analysis based on a Welch's test (based on Student's test) the electroporation onset was discerned. The introduced uncertainty framework, could lead to a robust evaluation of the estimated conductivity, and support the scientific findings with respect to the comparison of the efficacy of different protocols and it can be used to optimize the design of electroporation-based applications in medical and biotechnological fields.