Tomaiuolo Giovanna, Preziosi Valentina, Simeone Marino, Guido Stefano, Ciancia Rosanna, Martinelli Vincenzo, Rinaldi Ciro, Rotoli Bruno
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università degli Studi Federico II, Naples, Italy.
Ann Ist Super Sanita. 2007;43(2):186-92.
The deformability of red blood cells flowing in microvessels is essential to maintain optimal blood circulation and to allow gas transfer between blood and tissues. Here, we report on an experimental methodology to investigate the deformability of RBCs flowing in microcapillaries having diameter close to the average cell size. The microcapillaries are placed in a rectangular flow cell, where a suspension of RBCs, properly diluted in albumin-additioned ACD, is fed through a syringe under the action of a liquid head in the physiological range. Video microscopy images of the flowing RBCs are acquired at high magnification and later processed by an automated image analysis macro. It was found that RBCs from healthy donors exhibit the classical parachute shape observed in vivo. Furthermore, all the data of healthy RBC velocity vs liquid head are well represented by the same linear regression, independently on the donor. Preliminary results on beta-thalassemia RBCs are also presented and show, on the average, a reduced velocity compared to healthy samples.
红细胞在微血管中流动时的可变形性对于维持最佳血液循环以及实现血液与组织之间的气体交换至关重要。在此，我们报告一种实验方法，用于研究在直径接近平均细胞大小的微毛细血管中流动的红细胞的可变形性。将微毛细血管放置在矩形流动池中，在生理范围内的液柱作用下，通过注射器向流动池中注入在添加白蛋白的ACD中适当稀释的红细胞悬浮液。以高倍率采集流动红细胞的视频显微镜图像，随后通过自动图像分析宏程序进行处理。结果发现，来自健康供体的红细胞呈现出在体内观察到的经典降落伞形状。此外，健康红细胞速度与液柱的所有数据均由相同的线性回归很好地表示，与供体无关。还展示了β地中海贫血红细胞的初步结果，平均而言，与健康样本相比，其速度降低。
