INVESTIGADORES
OLAIZ Nahuel Manuel
artículos
Título:
The Role of Additional Pulses in Electropermeabilization Protocols
Autor/es:
CECILIA SUÁREZ; ALEJANDRO SOBA; FELIPE MAGLIETTI; NAHUEL OLAIZ; GUILLERMO MARSHALL
Revista:
PLOS ONE
Editorial:
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
Referencias:
Lugar: San Francisco; Año: 2014
ISSN:
1932-6203
Resumen:
Electropermeabilization (EP) based protocols such as those applied in
medicine, food processing or environmental management, are well
established and widely used. The applied voltage, as well as tissue
electric conductivity, are of utmost importance for assessing final
electropermeabilized area and thus EP effectiveness. Experimental
results from literature report that, under certain EP protocols,
consecutive pulses increase tissue electric conductivity and even the
permeabilization amount. Here we introduce a theoretical model that
takes into account this effect in the application of an EP-based
protocol, and its validation with experimental measurements. The
theoretical model describes the electric field distribution by a
nonlinear Laplace equation with a variable conductivity coefficient
depending on the electric field, the temperature and the quantity of
pulses, and the Penne's Bioheat equation for temperature variations. In
the experiments, a vegetable tissue model (potato slice) is used for
measuring electric currents and tissue electropermeabilized area in
different EP protocols. Experimental measurements show that, during
sequential pulses and keeping constant the applied voltage, the electric
current density and the blackened (electropermeabilized) area increase.
This behavior can only be attributed to a rise in the electric
conductivity due to a higher number of pulses. Accordingly, we present a
theoretical modeling of an EP protocol that predicts correctly the
increment in the electric current density observed experimentally during
the addition of pulses. The model also demonstrates that the electric
current increase is due to a rise in the electric conductivity, in turn
induced by temperature and pulse number, with no significant changes in
the electric field distribution. The EP model introduced, based on a
novel formulation of the electric conductivity, leads to a more
realistic description of the EP phenomenon, hopefully providing more
accurate predictions of treatment outcomes.