The Role of Nitric Oxide in Regulation of Red Blood Cell Deformability.

Abstract

Nitric Oxide (NO) has been suggested to modulate the deformability of red blood cells (RBCs). Bor-Kucukatay (Bor-Kucukatay et al. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 284: H1577, 2003) found that cells incubated with 1 μM of the NO donor sodium nitroprusside lead to a small but significant increase RBC deformability as measured by ektacytometry. However, no significant effect was seen at lower or higher concentrations of sodium nitroprusside or for any concentration of another NO donor, diethylenetriamine NONOate. Kleinbongard (Kleinbongard et al. Blood 10; 3992, 2005) found large increases in red cell deformability as a function of added arginine (the substrate for Nitric Oxide Synthase) by measuring the flow rate through filters. On the other hand, using cell aspiration techniques, Bateman (Bateman et al. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 280; H2848 H2001) found that NO production during sepsis causes a decrease in RBC deformability. Clearly more work is needed to determine the effects of NO on RBC deformability.The present work was undertaken to further investigate the effect of NO on normal and sickle RBC deformability. ProLi NONOate, arginine, and nitrite (which can be reduced to NO by hemoglobin (Hb), were incubated with blood at various concentrations over a period of 2 hours. Nitrosyl Hb and MetHb formed due to the interaction between NO and RBCs were quantified by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. The deformability was measured using a flow channel laser diffraction similar to ektacytometry (Huang et al. Am J Hematol 67; 151, 2001, Biophys J 85; 2374, 2003) with a stress range from 0 to 1,000 Pa. Diffraction patterns produced by deformed cells were analyzed by Matlab®. The deformability coefficients were compared to the control (n=6 per experiment condition). Our results suggested that ProLi NONOate did not significantly effect the deformability of normal RBCs. In a single case, ProLi NONOate improved the deformability of poorly deformable sickle red cells and this result is being studied further. Using our flow channel assay, we did not find any significant affects of arginine on RBC deformability. In addition, our studies involving nitrite, performed under both oxygenated and deoxygenated conditions, suggested that nitrite has no significant effect on RBC deformability. In summary, NO didn't significantly affect the deformability of normal RBCs, and its potential effects on sickle RBCs needs to be further investigated.