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