Diversity of monopolar and bipolar nanosecond pulsed electric signals on the metallo-enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD), a modelling approach

Recent papers showed that when dealing with nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs), bipolar pulses proved far less effective at membrane permeabilization and at cell killing than monopolar ones, contrary to what happens in the microsecond range. The mechanism at the basis of such selective response of cells is not fully elucidated. One hypothesis worthwhile to test could be a direct action of nsPEFs on intracellular enzyme reactions. The goal of this study is to investigate possible enzyme response due to the application of nsPEF monopolar and bipolar of intensity of 10
⁸
V/m and duration of 100 ns on the superoxide dismutase (SOD, Cu-Zn) enzyme, by means of a molecular dynamics (MD) modelling approach.