A nonlinear cell electroporation model and its verification using micro electroporation chips

A nonlinear electromechanical coupled model is proposed to study the pore expansion of single-cell electroporation (EP) due to intense applied electric field. By introducing the strain energy accumulated in the membrane during EP, the proposed model can predict the critical transmembrane potential, the activation energy, and the equilibrium pore size. To verirfy the model, a 3D single-cell micro EP chip was developed by using micro electroplating technology, and the EP experiments were conducted on chicken red blood cells (RBC). An EP “phase diagram” for chicken RBCs was obtained, which delineates the boundary of the areas for cell lysis, electroporation and absence of electroporation. The critical transmembrane potential of EP predicted from our model shows a good agreement with the experimental results.