An Electroporation-mediated Intracellular Delivery Model with Coupled Pore Currents and Solute Transport

In the field of biomedicine, electroporation-mediated intracellular drug delivery is becoming increasingly popular due to its high efficiency and accuracy. In order to assess the therapeutic efficacy of electroporation-mediated drug delivery, accurate mathematical models are required to predict the concentration and intracellular distribution of delivery molecules. Recent research indicates that classical models, constrained by specific parameter conditions, struggle to precisely predict the distribution of target molecules within cells. Therefore, to refine the model of electroporation-mediated intracellular delivery, this paper proposes an intracellular transport equation that couples pore currents with solute transmembrane delivery. The proposed model is validated using a two-dimensional finite element model and electroporation-mediated molecular delivery experiments, where propidium iodide (PI) is utilized as the target molecule to verify the improved model. In the dynamic transport experiments of intracellular molecules, the results and simulations can be well fitted. The axial fluorescence distributions exhibited a high degree of correlation with the simulation results across various parametric conditions. The results indicate that, subsequent to the integration of solute transport with pore current, there is a significant reduction in the electrophoretic intensity of charged particles during the transmembrane process, in comparison to that observed in the classical model. This research can enhance the accuracy of predictions concerning the dynamic processes involved in intracellular molecular delivery.