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Explicit Stokes flows for a moving internal boundary and applications to pore dynamics in liposomes

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

Calculations for the streaming flow around deformable bodies are of interest in a number of areas including physiology and chemical engineering. Electroporation is an experimental technique in which the application of a large electric pulse results in the dielectric breakdown of a cell membrane; the formation of a pore allows the introduction of once-impermeant molecules into the cell. Illumination of liposomes is another technique where excitation of the fluorescently labeled lipids to leads to the formation of pores that widen in order to relieve mechanical tension. In order to make progress in modeling these phenomena, and eventually use the techniques for medical applications, it is useful to know the details of the flow patterns and quantify the rate at which electric or mechanical energy is dissipated by viscous losses. A fairly complete analytical description is possible in this situation because even though the initial deformations can be large, pore widening and closure occur over a long time scale while the cell is nearly spherical.

Mathematics; Partial differential equations; Biology and other natural sciences; Applied analysis / inverse problems

video/mp4

Author affiliation: Fordham University

2017-01-26

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/59848

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/