My experiment consists of electroporation of PBMCs (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) with plasmid DNA and use of modified cells 4h after electroporation. However, after 4h I still won´t have protein expression, but I need a reporter to show that indeed the cells were electroporated and the plasmid entered the cells. Also, it would be good to have a reporter as the electroporation efficiency will probably vary between experiments, so I can control this.
I thought about using a small DNA (ss or ds) conjugated to Cy3 or Cy5, so I can check by flow cytometry. However I´m afraid that, being smaller compared to plasmids, this will transfect almost 100% of the cells and will not correlate with plasmid transfection efficiency. Any ideas or alternatives on this?