Theoretical Calculation of the Electric Field in the Vicinity of a Pore Formed in a Cell Membrane

Electroporation of biological cell membranes is a phenomena that occurs almost universally at a transmembrane potential of approximately 1000 mV. Theories of pore formation have been proposed based on electrocompression (Crowley 1972, Malderelli and Steebe 1992), local membrane defects (Abidor and Chizdhmazdev 1979, Weaver and Mintzer 1981, Sugar 1981), and Statistical models were proposed by (Sowers and Lieber 1986). However, these theories do not in general derive the form of the electric field within the pore. In this paper, we present a view that is useful in describing the biological membrane. We also derive an approximate functional form for the electric field in the region of a pore formed in the membrane.