Nonlinear Supra-Electroporation in Realistic Stem Cell Morphologies

摘要

Exposing cells to ultrashort electric field pulsescan lead to the permeabilization of the membranes of theinternal cell organelles, such as the nucleus, which is termed assupra-electroporation. In this paper, we study the supraelectroporationof stem cells with realistic morphologies undernanosecond electrical pulse stimulation. For such short pulses,the cell and the nucleus membranes exhibit non-linearity in theirconductance. Therefore, we used a non-linear model for thecells’ membranes, coupled with a quasi-static electromagneticsolver, and obtained the solution using a commercial FiniteElement Method (FEM) solver. The results show that the outershape of the cell has a strong effect on the magnitude and thespatiotemporal patterns of the electric field inside the cell, whichaffects the rate of the supra-electroporation of the nucleus.These variations in the rate of the supra-electroporation of thenucleus can guide the selective targeting of desired cells withspecific shapes.