Issue 34, 2010
From the journal:

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Electrical modeling of the influence of medium conductivity on electroporation

Antoni Ivorra,*a   Julien Villemejanebcd  and  Lluis M. Mirbc  

* Corresponding authors

a Dept. of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
E-mail: antoni.ivorra@gmail.com

b CNRS, UMR 8203, Institut Gustave-Roussy, Villejuif, France

c Univ Paris-Sud, UMR 8203, france

d CNRS, SATIE, Institut d'Alembert, ENS Cachan, Cachan, France

Abstract

Electroporation is the phenomenon in which cell membrane permeability is increased by exposing the cell to short high electric field pulses. Experimental data show that the amount of permeabilization depends on the conductivity of the extracellular medium. If medium conductivity decreases then it is necessary to deliver a pulse of larger field amplitude in order to achieve the same effect. Models that do not take into account the permeabilization effect on the membrane conductivity cannot reproduce qualitatively the experimental observations. Here we employ an exponential function for describing the strong dependence of membrane conductivity on transmembrane potential. Combining that model with numerical methods we demonstrate that the dependence on medium conductivity can be explained as being the result of increased membrane conductance due to electroporation. As experimentally observed, extracellular conductivities of about 1 and 0.1 S m−1 yield very similar results, however, for lower conductivities (<0.01 S m−1) the model predicts that significantly higher field magnitudes will be required to achieve the same amount of permeabilization.

Graphical abstract: Electrical modeling of the influence of medium conductivity on electroporation

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C004419A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Mar 2010
Accepted
14 Jun 2010
First published
28 Jun 2010

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010,12, 10055-10064

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Electrical modeling of the influence of medium conductivity on electroporation

A. Ivorra, J. Villemejane and L. M. Mir, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 10055 DOI: 10.1039/C004419A

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