Heterogeneous red blood cell adhesion and deformability in sickle cell disease

Yunus Alapan; Jane A Little; Umut A Gurkan

doi:10.1038/srep07173

Heterogeneous red blood cell adhesion and deformability in sickle cell disease

Sci Rep. 2014 Nov 24:4:7173. doi: 10.1038/srep07173.

Authors

Yunus Alapan¹, Jane A Little², Umut A Gurkan³

Affiliations

¹ Case Biomanufacturing and Microfabrication Laboratory, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.
² 1] Department of Hematology and Oncology, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA [2] Seidman Cancer Center at University Hospitals, Case Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.
³ 1] Case Biomanufacturing and Microfabrication Laboratory, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA [2] Department of Orthopaedics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA [3] Advanced Platform Technology Center, Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.

Abstract

We present a microfluidic approach that allows simultaneous interrogation of RBC properties in physiological flow conditions at a single cell level. With this method, we studied healthy hemoglobin A (HbA) and homozygous sickle hemoglobin (HbS) containing RBCs using whole blood samples from twelve subjects. We report that HbS-containing RBCs are heterogeneous in terms of adhesion and deformability in flow.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anemia, Sickle Cell / pathology
Blood Flow Velocity
Cell Adhesion
Erythrocyte Deformability / physiology*
Erythrocytes / cytology
Erythrocytes / physiology*
Hemoglobin A / chemistry
Hemoglobin, Sickle / chemistry
Humans
Microfluidic Analytical Techniques
Shear Strength

Substances

Hemoglobin, Sickle
Hemoglobin A