Exposure of cells to electric fields: numerical analysis with a volume-integral-equation approach

The exposure of biological cells to an incident electric field (EF) affects cellular behaviour. However, the interaction mechanisms are still a matter of discussion. Although most of the evidence comes from experimental trials, numerical simulations are helpful to obviate the lack of reproducible experimental results and to resolve contradictory conclusions. In this work we present a numerical framework for computing the intracellular EF in arbitrary-shaped biological cells with nucleus. As an example, up to four inhomogeneous cells exposed to an incident EF of 1 V/m at 2.45 GHz are studied. The solution is obtained by implementing the electric flux volume integral equation (VIE) and the Method of Moments (MoM) with SchaubertWilton-Glisson (SWG) basis functions. Qualitative results show that the intracellular EF is related to the neighboring cells in terms of number and position. Quantitative analysis shows intracellular variations in the order of 20-30 mV/mm, which might be enough to trigger biological responses in cells. Therefore, this approach may be suitable to further investigate the cell-cell EF interactions, especially in non-canonical shaped cells with non-concentric nucleus.