Analysis of membrane permeability due to synergistic effect of controlled shock wave and electric field application

ABSTRACT

Controlled shock wave has its application in drug delivery via induced membrane permeability. The magnitude of the impulse force to influence the membrane permeability can be abridged via communion effect of shock wave and external applied electric field of reduced threshold. Controlled shock wave have application at targeting membrane site and are used in drug delivery. Electric field influences the phospholipid bilayer structure by creating transient nanometer-sized pores and has application in targeted chemotherapeutic drug delivery. The synergistic input compensates for increased membrane permeability, reduced threshold magnitude and time for transient poration. The hypothesis is analyzed via Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation. MARTINI coarse grain force field is used to evaluate the changes in the permeability region of the Dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC) bilayers during the effect. DPPC has been used in the previous literature to model biological membranes. The hydrophobic DPPC region showed an increased permeability during the synergistic effect via transient nanopores formed due to the perturbation. The study of the time-variant synergistic effect will allow molecular-level understanding of the dynamics of the cell membrane permeability for future drug delivery procedure.

KEYWORDS:

• DPPC
• electric field
• Molecular Dynamics (MD)
• nanopores
• shock wave