IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2018 Feb;65(2):414-423. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2017.2771943.
During the past decades, the poration of cell membrane induced by pulsed electric fields has been widely investigated. Since the basic mechanisms of this process have not yet been fully clarified, many research activities are focused on the development of suitable theoretical and numerical models. To this end, a nonlinear, nonlocal, dispersive, and space-time numerical algorithm has been developed and adopted to evaluate the transmembrane voltage and pore density along the perimeter of realistic irregularly shaped cells. The presented model is based on the Maxwell's equations and the asymptotic Smoluchowski's equation describing the pore dynamics. The dielectric dispersion of the media forming the cell has been modeled by using a general multirelaxation Debye-based formulation. The irregular shape of the cell is described by using the Gielis' superformula. Different test cases pertaining to red blood cells, muscular cells, cell in mitosis phase, and cancer-like cell have been investigated. For each type of cell, the influence of the relevant shape, the dielectric properties, and the external electric pulse characteristics on the electroporation process has been analyzed. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed model is an efficient numerical tool to study the electroporation problem in arbitrary-shaped cells.
在过去的几十年中，细胞膜的电穿孔已被广泛研究。由于这一过程的基本机制尚未完全阐明，许多研究活动都集中在开发合适的理论和数值模型上。为此，开发并采用了一种非线性、非局部、弥散和时空数值算法，以评估真实非规则形状细胞边界处的跨膜电压和孔密度。所提出的模型基于描述孔动力学的麦克斯韦方程和渐近 Smoluchowski 方程。通过使用基于多松弛 Debye 的一般公式来模拟形成细胞的介质的介电弥散。使用 Gielis 超公式来描述细胞的不规则形状。研究了涉及红细胞、肌肉细胞、有丝分裂阶段的细胞和类似癌细胞的不同测试案例。对于每种类型的细胞，分析了相关形状、介电特性和外部电脉冲特性对电穿孔过程的影响。数值结果表明，所提出的模型是研究任意形状细胞电穿孔问题的有效数值工具。
