Membrane Electroporation Phenomenon Of Mechanistic Studies

In the recent years, the biological effects of electromagnetic field and its applications have been widely studied including the thermal and non-thermal effects. Research on the non-thermal effects of pulsed electromagnetic field is a new field of bioelectromagnetics. It is usually believed that the origin of non-thermal effects of pulsed electromagnetic field is cell membrane and the electroporation of cell membrane is a key of explaining the mechanism of non-thermal.The phenomenon of "electroporation" occurs if the cell was under an appropriate pulse field. Electroporation is believed to be the aqueous pathways which rapidly were created through lipid-containing barriers in cells and tissue. The driving force is the physical interaction between electric fields and two matters with different dielectric constants.This thesis introduces the research and progress on the mechanism of electroporation and its applications. A pulsed power supply has been designed for research on electroporation which can output bipolar rectangular pulses, and can vary the voltage scope, pulse width and repetition .The principle system and specifications of this instrument are introduced in this paper. Using liver cancer cells as target cells, the threshold of field of electroporation is studied. Based on the experiments and analysis, an electrical stress model of electroproation has been set up and the process of electroporation has been described. Also we discuss the mechanism of the intracellular electro- manipulation .