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Title: Dynamic fatigue measurement of human erythrocytes using dielectrophoresis

Journal Article · · Acta Biomaterialia
 [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton, FL (United States)

Erythrocytes must undergo severe deformation to pass through narrow capillaries and submicronic splenic slits for several hundred thousand times in their normal lifespan. Studies of erythrocyte biomechanics have been mainly focused on cell deformability and rheology measured from a single application of stress and mostly under a static or quasi-static state using classical biomechanical techniques, such as optical tweezers and micropipette aspiration. Dynamic behavior of erythrocytes in response to cyclic stresses that contributes to the membrane failure in blood circulation is not fully understood. This article presents a new experimental method for dynamic fatigue analysis of erythrocytes, using amplitude modulated electrokinetic force field in a microfluidic platform. Here, we demonstrate the capability of this new technique using a low cycle fatigue analysis of normal human erythrocytes and ATP-depleted erythrocytes. Cyclic tensile stresses are generated to induce repeated uniaxial stretching and extensional recovery of single erythrocytes. Results of morphological and biomechanical parameters of individually tracked erythrocytes show strong correlations with the number of the loading cycles. Under a same strength of electric field, after 180 stress cycles, for normal erythrocytes, maximum stretch ratio decreases from 3.80 to 2.86, characteristic time of cellular extensional recovery increases from 0.16 s to 0.37 s, membrane shear viscosity increases from 1.0 (µN/m) s to 1.6 (µN/m) s. Membrane deformation in a small number of erythrocytes becomes irreversible after large deformation for about 200 cyclic loads. ATP-depleted cells show similar trends in decreased deformation and increased characteristic time with the loading cycles. Lastly, these results show proof of concept of the new microfluidics technique for dynamic fatigue analysis of human erythrocytes.

Research Organization:
Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton, FL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1418522
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1550081
Journal Information:
Acta Biomaterialia, Vol. 57, Issue C; ISSN 1742-7061
Publisher:
Acta Materialia, Inc.Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 34 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (2)

Mechanical fatigue of human red blood cells journal September 2019
Dielectrophoresis Testing of Nonlinear Viscoelastic Behaviors of Human Red Blood Cells journal January 2018

Figures / Tables (8)


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