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Morphology of depletant-induced erythrocyte aggregates

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-12-07, 14:17 authored by Austin Nehring, Tyler Shendruk, Hendrick W. de Haan
Red blood cells suspended in quiescent plasma tend to aggregate into multicellular assemblages, including linearly stacked columnar rouleaux, which can reversibly form more complex clusters or branching networks. While these aggregates play an essential role in establishing hemorheological and pathological properties, the biophysics behind their self-assembly into dynamic mesoscopic structures remains under-explored. We employ coarse-grained molecular simulations to model low-hematocrit erythrocytes subject to short-range implicit depletion forces, and demonstrate not only that depletion interactions are sufficient to account for a sudden dispersion-aggregate transition, but also that the volume fraction of depletant macromolecules controls small aggregate morphology. We observe a sudden transition from a dispersion to a linear column rouleau, followed by a slow emergence of disorderly amorphous clusters of many short rouleaux at larger volume fractions. This work demonstrates how discocyte topology and short-range, non-specific, physical interactions are sufficient to self-assemble erythrocytes into various aggregate structures, with markedly different morphologies and biomedical consequences.

Funding

HWdH gratefully acknowledges funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) in the form of Discovery Grant 2014-06091.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematical Sciences

Published in

Soft Matter

Citation

NEHRING, A., SHENDRUK, T.N. and DE HAAN, H.W., 2018. Morphology of depletant-induced erythrocyte aggregates. Soft Matter, 14, pp. 8160-8171.

Publisher

© Royal Society of Chemistry

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Soft Matter and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1039/c8sm01026a.

Acceptance date

2018-09-08

Publication date

2018

eISSN

1744-6848

Language

  • en

Location

England

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