Quantitative analysis of three-dimensional morphology and membrane dynamics of red blood cells during temperature elevation

Keyvan Jaferzadeh,MinWoo Sim,NamGon Kim,InKyu Moon

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50640-z

Keyvan Jaferzadeh, MinWoo Sim + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50640-z

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Abstract

The optimal functionality of red blood cells is closely associated with the surrounding environment. This study was undertaken to analyze the changes in membrane profile, mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), and cell membrane fluctuations (CMF) of healthy red blood cells (RBC) at varying temperatures. The temperature was elevated from 17 °C to 41 °C within a duration of less than one hour, and the holograms were recorded by an off-axis configuration. After hologram reconstruction, we extracted single RBCs and evaluated their morphologically related features (projected surface area and sphericity coefficient), MCH, and CMF. We observed that elevating the temperature results in changes in the three-dimensional (3D) profile. Since CMF amplitude is highly correlated to the bending curvature of RBC membrane, temperature-induced shape changes can alter CMF’s map and amplitude; mainly larger fluctuations appear on dimple area at a higher temperature. Regardless of the shape changes, no alterations in MCH were seen with temperature variation.

Highlights

Mature red blood cells (RBCs) or the so-called erythrocytes are the main cell types present in blood circulation
We monitored the changes in the shape and cell membrane fluctuations (CMF) map of RBCs with respect to varying temperatures at the single-RBC level in a label-free manner
We believe that thermal-induced change imbalances equilibrium of the RBC membrane in different ways and it can be monitored by digital holography (DH)

Summary

Introduction

Mature red blood cells (RBCs) or the so-called erythrocytes are the main cell types present in blood circulation. DH provides quantitative phase images (QPIs) at the single-cell level with nanometer accuracy Since this method records phase changes instead of amplitude, staining by a specific dye is not required. DH in microscopic configuration has been utilized in studies of various types of cells[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] and human red blood cells[20,21,22,23,24,25,26] Parameters such as RBC volume, surface area, sphericity index, refractive index and RBC membrane fluctuations are essential parameters that can be evaluated using DH. Interferograms (Fig. 1(b)) are recorded by a charge-coupled-device (CCD) camera, and the data is transmitted to a personal computer for numerical reconstruction

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