The Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics of Education Ministry, School of Physics and TEDA Institute of Applied Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana and J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, SI1000, Slovenia.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2019 Apr 30;512(2):303-309. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2019.03.066. Epub 2019 Mar 16.
Extreme deformability of human erythrocytes is a prerequisite for their ability to squeeze through narrow capillaries of the blood microcirculation system. Various drugs can modify this deformability and consequently provoke circulation problems. We demonstrate that microfluidic assemblies are very convenient platforms for in vitro study of the associated processes. Two types of microfluidic channels were designed to quantitatively investigate modifications of erythrocyte deformability induced by hydrogen peroxide, ethanol and pentoxifylline based on transit velocity measurements. With a high sensitivity our microfluidic assemblies show that hydrogen peroxide decreases erythrocyte deformability in a dose-dependent manner. Then, results on ethanol resolve a biphasic nature of this reactant on the deformability of single erythrocyte cells. Results on pentoxifylline provide evidence that, similar to ethanol, also this medical drug has a double-sided effect on the erythrocyte deformability, i.e. increasing the deformability at low concentrations, while decreasing it at higher ones. Taken together, our microfluidic designs propose a potent measurement method for the erythrocyte deformability, as well as providing a perspective to evaluate effects of drugs on it.
人类红细胞的极端变形性是其能够通过血液微循环系统的狭窄毛细血管的先决条件。各种药物可以改变这种变形性，从而引发循环问题。我们证明微流控组件是体外研究相关过程的非常方便的平台。设计了两种类型的微流道，基于通过速度测量定量研究由过氧化氢、乙醇和己酮可可碱引起的红细胞变形性的变化。我们的微流控组件具有高灵敏度，表明过氧化氢以剂量依赖的方式降低红细胞的变形性。然后，关于乙醇的结果解决了这种反应物对单个红细胞变形性的双相性质。关于己酮可可碱的结果提供了证据，表明类似于乙醇，这种药物对红细胞变形性也有双面作用，即在低浓度下增加变形性，而在较高浓度下降低变形性。总之，我们的微流控设计提出了一种用于测量红细胞变形性的有效方法，并为评估药物对其的影响提供了一个视角。
