Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Dynamic Pore-scale Reservoir-condition Imaging of Reaction in Carbonates Using Synchrotron Fast Tomography
Published on: February 21, 2017
Singular perturbation analysis of the pore creation transient
1Department of Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
Electroporation, in which electric pulses create transient pores in the cell membrane, is an important technique for drug and DNA delivery. Electroporation kinetics is mathematically described by an advection-diffusion boundary value problem. This study uses singular perturbation to derive a reduced description of the pore creation transient in the form of a single integrodifferential equation for the transmembrane voltage Vt. The number of pores and the distribution of their radii are computed from Vt. The analysis contains two nonstandard features: the use of the voltage deviation to peel away the strong exponential dependence of pore creation upon the transmembrane potential, and the autonomous approximation of the pore evolution. Comparing the predictions of the reduced equation with the simulations of the original problem demonstrates that this analysis allows one to predict with good accuracy the number and distribution of pores as a function of the electric pulse strength.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Transient and Steady-state Response
These test signals are integral in designing control systems to exhibit two key performance aspects: transient response and steady-state response.
Partial Differential Equations
Pore Transport and Ion-Pair Transport
Pore transport, also known as convective transport, is a process where small molecules like urea, water, and sugars rapidly cross cell membranes as though there were channels or pores in the membrane. Although direct microscopic evidence is limited but the concept of pores or channels is widely accepted based on physiological evidence. Despite the lack of direct microscopic...
Porin Insertion in the Outer Mitochondrial Membrane
Three models describe the assembly of porins by the SAM complex and their insertion into the outer membrane. Model 1 suggests that porins are assembled outside the SAM channel as the...

