Electroporation in Giardia lamblia

Electroporation was first applied in Giardia lamblia in 1990 by Furfine and Wang (1 ) to introduce a full-length giardiavirus (GLV) single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) into uninfected G. lamblia cells. After electroporation, the cells were grown to confluency and passed serially at 1∶13 dilutions. It was found that by the eighth passage, ssRNA had replicated to form the viral genomic dsRNA in detectable amounts. Fully assembled and infectious virus particles could be recovered from the culture medium supernatant as well. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first successful example that the genomic transcript of a dsRNA virus can be introduced into the host cell to generate a mature virus.