Transmembrane Voltage on Realistic Models of Suspended and Adhered Cells Induced by Electroporation

The transmembrane voltage induced by reversible electroporation protocols in cell suspensions and adhered cells is reported in this work for five cancerous cell lines and one non-cancerous cell line. Therefore, cell-specific morphology was evaluated. Realistic three-dimensional models of adhered cells were reconstructed from sequences of confocal microscopy images. The induced transmembrane voltage (ITV) was analytically and numerically determined for cell suspensions and adhered cells respectively. Cells at a tissue level show a very irregular shape, and therefore the models of adhered cell conferred a closer representation to the scenario that may be found in vivo, and the calculation of ITV in these realistic models may be more accurate. ITV values resulted to be much higher for cell suspensions in comparison to the values numerically determined for adhered cells. Analytical and numerical values are in good agreement only for cells showing a spheroidal shape when adhered. In general, the ITV numerically determined for all adhered cells, ranged between 200 mV and 800 mV. Specifically, the ITV resulted to be dependent on the cell type and cell morphology. In addition, the pathophysiological state of cells might influence the ITV values since they resulted to be much higher in non-transformed cells than in cancerous cells. It has been reported that ITV should not be unnecessarily high in order to avoid intracellular signaling to the cytoskeleton of non-target cells and influence a metastatic process. Hence, calculation of certain ITV values is encouraged based on prior determination of cell-specific reversible electroporation thresholds.