Individual red blood cell transit times during flow through cylindrical micropores

Abstract

In order to study the concept of RBC sub-population deformability. we have developed a new system called the Cell Transit Analyser (CTA) which measures the electrical conductance change produced by cells travelling through individual cylindrical micropores. The cell’s transit time through the pore can be determined. This computer-based device provides both the mean transit time T for the entire cell population and the distribution of transit times for a large number (e.g. 2000) of cells. Initial experiments were performed with a large-scale electrical model in order to allow analysis of the electrical resistance signals. Experiments with red cells were designed to evaluate the flow behavior of both normal cells and cells with abnormal mechanical properties (i.e. RBCs whose mechanical properties were artificially altered and cells with significant rheological abnormalities such as sickle cells). For both control and “rheologicaly abnormal” red cells, a skew distribution of transit time towards longer transit times was observed.