On the dielectric relaxation of biological cell suspensions: The effect of the membrane electrical conductivity

Due to the mismatch of the electrical parameters (the permittivity ϵ′ and the electrical conductivity σ) of the membrane of a biological cell with the ones of the cytosol and the extracellular medium, biological cell suspensions are the site, under the influence of an external electric field, of large dielectric relaxations in the radiowave frequency range. However, a point still remains controversial, i.e., whether or not the value of membrane conductivity σs might be extracted from the de-convolution of the dielectric spectra or otherwise if it would be more reasonable to assign to the membrane conductivity a value equal to zero. This point is not to be considered with superficiality since it concerns an a priori choice which ultimately influences the values of the electrical parameters deduced from this technique. As far as this point is concerned, the opinion of the researchers in this field diverges. We believe that, at least within certain limits, the membrane conductivity can be deduced from the shape of the relaxation spectra. We substantiate this thesis with two different examples concerning the first a suspension of human normal erythrocyte cells and the second a suspension of human lymphocyte cells. In both cases, by means of an accurate fitting procedure based on the Levenberg–Marquardt method for complex functions, we can evaluate the membrane conductivity σs with its associated uncertainty. The knowledge of the membrane electrical conductivity will favor the investigation of different ion transport mechanisms across the cell membrane.

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► Dielectric spectroscopy of biological cell provides useful information on the passive electrical properties of the cell membrane.
► A point still remains controversial, i.e., whether or not the value of the membrane conductivity might be derived from the analysis of the dielectric spectra.
► We believe that, at least within certain limits, the value of the membrane conductivity can be deduced from the shape of the dielectric spectra and that the a priori assumption of a zero electrical conductivity should be rejected.
► We substantiate this thesis with two different examples concerning human erythrocyte and human lymphocyte cell suspensions on the basis of an accurate fitting procedure of both the permittivity and the conductivity losses.