A numerical analysis of multicellular environment for modeling tissue electroporation

Simulations probing the conductivity changes of three-dimensional models of biological tissues consisting of random ternary core-shell sphere packings with different spatial scales are described. We investigate the temporal evolution of the electric conductivity of these packings during application of an electric field with magnitude either below or above the value leading to cell membrane electroporation. The fraction of electroporated cells can be described by a hyperbolic tangent function of the electric field. The collective physical processes causing the transient permeability of the cell membranes can be understood by analogy with the physics of a two-state system with an external field. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3700727]