https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-024-01110-9
Review
Human red blood cell membrane stiffness: why should we study it and how?
1
Department of Science and Humanities, PES University, Ring Road Campus, 560085, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
2
Department of Physics, Bangalore University, Jnanabharathi Campus, 560056, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
a
sarbari.bhattacharya@bub.ernet.in
Received:
15
November
2023
Accepted:
22
January
2024
Published online:
22
February
2024
The primary function of the human red blood cells (RBCs) is to transport oxygen to all tissues in the human body for the process of cellular respiration. To do this, RBCs often need to pass through capillaries in the human vasculature which have diameters smaller than that of the RBC, requiring them to undergo extensive deformations. An altered RBC cell membrane stiffness (CMS), thereby, is likely to have consequences on the RBC flow rate. RBC CMS is known to be affected by several commonly encountered disease conditions. This mini-review gives an overview of the basic knowledge needed to study RBC transport in microcirculation and outlines the various techniques utilized to measure the RBC CMS. It also describes in detail certain techniques that are best suited to further understanding of in vivo RBC microcirculation.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
