Biophysical Journal 63: 1632-1642 (1992)
© 1992 the Biophysical Society

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Cellular membrane potentials induced by alternating fields

Constantino Grosse ^*  and Herman P. Schwan 

Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, 4000 San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la República Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 USA

ABSTRACT

Membrane potentials induced by external alternating fields are usually derived assuming that the membrane is insulating, that the cell has no surface conductance, and that the potentials are everywhere solutions of the Laplace equation. This traditional approach is reexamined taking into account membrane conductance, surface admittance, and space charge effects. We find that whenever the conductivity of the medium outside the cell is low, large corrections are needed. Thus, in most of the cases where cells are manipulated by external fields (pore formation, cell fusion, cell rotation, dielectrophoresis) the field applied to the cell membrane is significantly reduced, sometimes practically abolished. This could have a strong bearing on present theories of pore formation, and of the influence of weak electric fields on membranes.

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