Computational modeling of biomechanics and biorheology of heated red blood cells

Abstract

Because of their compromised deformability, heat denatured erythrocytes have been used as labeled probes to visualize spleen tissue or to assess the ability of the spleen to retain stiff red blood cells (RBCs) for over three decades, e.g., see Looareesuwan et al. N. Engl. J. Med. (1987). Despite their good accessibility, it is still an open question how heated RBCs compare to certain diseased RBCs in terms of their biomechanical and biorheological responses, which may undermine their effective usage and even lead to misleading experimental observations. To help answering this question, we perform a systematic computational study of the hemorheological properties of heated RBCs with several physiologically relevant static and hemodynamic settings, including optical-tweezers test, relaxation of prestretched RBCs, RBC traversal through a capillary-like channel and a spleen-like slit, and a viscometric rheology test. We show that our in silico RBC models agree well with existing experiments. Moreover, under static tests, heated RBCs exhibit deformability deterioration comparable to certain disease-impaired RBCs such as those in malaria. For RBC traversal under confinement (through microchannel or slit), heated RBCs show prolonged transit time or retention depending on the level of confinement and heating procedure, suggesting that carefully heat-treated RBCs may be useful for studying splenic- or vaso-occlusion in vascular pathologies. For the rheology test, we expand the existing bulk viscosity data of heated RBCs to a wider range of shear rates (1–1000 s−1) to represent most pathophysiological conditions in macro- or microcirculation. Although heated RBC suspension shows elevated viscosity comparable to certain diseased RBC suspensions under relatively high shear rates (100–1000 s−1), they underestimate the elevated viscosity (e.g., in sickle cell anemia) at low shear rates (<10 s−1). Our work provides mechanistic rationale for selective usage of heated RBC as a potentially useful model for studying the abnormal traversal dynamics and hemorheology in certain blood disorders.