A Physics-based Model of Hydrogen Bond Disruption in Cell Membranes Under Electric Fields

A physical model is presented for hydrogen bonding in an effort to better understand the  impact of electric fields on hydrogen bonds in human cells. Using fundamental dielectric physics  and hydrogen-bonding in cell membranes, the model indicates that little/no membrane  degradation will occur for external electric fields of ≤ 200V/cm. The model also indicates that  significant damage to the cell membrane will commence at external fields as low as 1kV/cm,  strong and irreversible cell membrane degradation will occur at 10kV/cm, and catastrophic cell  membrane damage will occur at 40kV/cm. Any cell membrane degradation (that permits water  molecules to permeate the normally hydrophobic cell membrane layer) is shown to be  particularly devastating for H-bond breakage. This work is important not only for determining  the safe-levels of external electric field for humans but also the external field levels that impact  the electroporation process where cancer cell membranes are purposely broken down with  electric field. 

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.