Mechanical Stimulation of Red Blood Cells Aging: Focusing on the Microfluidics Application

Figures

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  Figure 1. Schematic representation of red blood cells cell. Normal RBCs are flexible and disk-shaped, thicker at the edges than in the middle. The RBC membrane forms its surface, and inside the cell is the cytosol, an aqueous solution of hemoglobin containing various salts and proteins.

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  Figure 2. A schematic representation of the RBC membrane structure, highlighting its key functional components: (A) high affinity band 3-ankyrin complexes located near the center of spectrin tetramers, (B) lower affinity band 3-adducin complexes, and (C) free band 3, which move laterally along the membrane by establishing short-lived unstable complexes with spectrin. The majority of hemoglobin molecules diffuse within the cytosol, while some of them are attached to the lipid bilayer and protein complexes.

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  Figure 3. The viscoelastic properties of the erythrocyte membrane are assessed by analyzing the energy storage and dissipation in relation to angular velocity, which results from the structural alterations of the membrane components during fluctuations. This viscoelastic behavior can be examined across two distinct regimes of angular velocities (or time scales).