A FEM Study of Molecular Transport Through a Single Nanopore in a Spherical Cell

Electroporation has a specific application in the delivery of drugs into the cells. In addition, the challenge is to be able to deliver the drugs effectively. The key to the electroporation-based delivery method is regulated induced transmembrane voltage (ITMV). Recently, with the advent of COVID-19, there has been an increase in clinical trials on the delivery of DNA plasmids by electroporation. As a result, the substantial number of laboratory experiments are not feasible, thereby increasing the dependency on simulation-based research. Simulations of delivery of extracellular material into the cell depend upon molecular transport modeling in an electroporated cell. In this paper, molecular transport through a single nanopore is being studied theoretically. The closed-form expression of molecular transport is used in COMSOL Multiphysics simulation to obtain extracellular concentration variation as a function of time. Sinusoidal pulses with the varying magnitude of electric field (8kV/cm and 10 kV/cm) and time duration were used to understand pulse parameters' effect on molecular transport. The simulation results match the empirical result from the literature hence validate the simulation study.

A Mathematical Model to Expedite Electroporation Based Vaccine Development for COVID-19

Electroporation has an application in the selective delivery of drugs explicitly into cells. However, the challenge is to achieve efficiency in delivering the drugs. The key parameter responsible for successful electroporation-mediated drug delivery is induced transmembrane voltage (ITMV). The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved the clinical trials of DNA plasmid delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine through electroporation. The requirement is to develop a COVID-19 vaccine within a limited time. Hence, the extensive amount of laboratory experiments are not feasible. It has increased dependency on simulation-based analysis. The simulations of electroporation depend on ITMV expression for the specified cell and the environment. In this paper, we have derived the closed-form expression of ITMV (∆Vm). The closed-form expression is used in COMSOL Multiphysics simulation to obtain extracellular concentration variation as a function of time. The simulation results match the empirical results from the literature and hence validate the closed-form expression. The closed-form expression will reduce the development time of electroporation-assisted COVID-19 vaccine delivery.