Speaker
Description
We derive a tissue-scale model of electroporation through periodic asymptotic analysis, based on a cell-scale model introduced by Leguèbe et al. (2014). In the cell-scale model, electroporation is described by coupling the transmembrane voltage to phenomenological variables representing the degree of membrane poration and oxidative effects in the lipid bilayer. An important biological feature of electroporation is that cell membranes can remain permeable to molecules for minutes after the electric pulse has ceased, even after pore resealing. This effect is accounted for by an additional phenomenological variable governed by a reaction–diffusion equation posed on the cell membranes. Using periodic homogenization, we rigorously upscale the coupled system from the cellular level to an effective tissue-scale description. In the homogenization limit, the membrane reaction–diffusion dynamics persist and give rise to macroscopic equations with diffusion effects inherited from the microscale structure. This multiscale framework provides a basis for analyzing and optimizing pulse protocols in applications such as drug delivery and electrochemotherapy, where both immediate and long-term permeability effects are crucial.
