Study of the selective effect on cells induced by nanosecond pulsed electric field with the resistor-capacitor circuit model

A resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit model is proposed to study the effect of nanosecond pulsed electric field on cells according to the structure and electrical parameters of cells. After a nanosecond step field has been applied, the variation of voltages across cytomembrane and mitochondria membrane both in normal and in malignant cells are studied with this model. The time for selectively targeting the mitochondria membrane and malignant cell can be evaluated much easily with curves that show the variation of voltage across each membrane with time. Ramp field is the typical field applied in electrobiology. The voltages across each membrane induced by ramp field are analyzed with this model. To selectively target the mitochondria membrane, proper range of ramp slope is needed. It is relatively difficult to decide the range of a slope to selectively affect the malignant cell. Under some conditions, such a range even does not exist.