Experimental and Numerical Study of Electroporation Induced by Long Monopolar and Short Bipolar Pulses on Realistic 3D Irregularly Shaped Cells

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering Vol. 67; no. 10; pp. 2781 - 2788
• Main Authors: Chiapperino, Michele A., Mescia, Luciano, Bia, Pietro, Staresinic, Barbara, Cemazar, Maja, Novickij, Vitalij, Tabasnikov, Aleksandr, Smith, Stewart, Dermol-Cerne, Janja, Miklavcic, Damijan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01-10-2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 3D geometry reconstruction; Biomembranes; Computer simulation; Confocal microscopy; dielectric dispersion; Electric fields; Electrodes; electromagnetic modeling; Electropermeabilization; Electroporation; Image reconstruction; Mathematical models; Membranes; multicellular systems; Numerical models; Plasma membranes; Plasmas; pulsed electric field; Resists; Three-dimensional displays; Voltage; Voltage pulses
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2020.2971138

In this article, the reversible electroporation induced by rectangular long unipolar and short bipolar voltage pulses on 3D cells is studied. The cell geometry was reconstructed from 3D images of real cells obtained using the confocal microscopy technique. A numerical model based on the Maxwell and the asymptotic Smoluchowski equations has been developed to calculate the induced transmembrane voltage and pore density on the plasma membrane of real cells exposed to the pulsed electric field. Moreover, in the case of the high-frequency pulses, the dielectric dispersion of plasma membranes has been taken into account using the second-order Debye-based relationship. Several numerical simulations were performed and we obtained suitable agreement between the numerical and experimental results.