Conducting and permeable states of cell membrane submitted to high voltage pulses: Mathematical and numerical studies validated by the experiments

•We differentiate conductive and permeable states of a cell membrane.•We follow concentrations of markers uptaken by permeabilized cells.•Numerical methods and a 3D code have been specifically written to provide results.•in vitro experimental results validate qualitatively our model.

The aim of this paper is to present a new model of in vitro cell electropermeabilization, which describes separately the conducting state and the permeable state of the membrane submitted to high voltage pulses. We first derive the model based on the experimental observations and we present the numerical methods to solve the non-linear partial differential equations. We then present numerical simulations that corroborate qualitatively the experimental data dealing with the uptake of propidium iodide (PI) after millipulses. This tends to justify the validity of our modeling. Forthcoming work will be to calibrate the parameters of the model for quantitative description of the uptake.