Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/103697
Title: Mechanical fatigue of human red blood cells
Authors: Qiang, Yuhao
Liu, Jia
Dao, Ming
Suresh, Subra
Du, E.
Keywords: Mechanical Fatigue Of Biological Cells
Mechanical Fatigue Of Erythrocytes
Engineering::Materials
Issue Date: 2019
Source: Qiang, Y., Liu, J., Dao, M., Suresh, S., & Du, E. Mechanical fatigue of human red blood cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201910336-. doi:10.1073/pnas.1910336116
Series/Report no.: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Abstract: Fatigue arising from cyclic straining is a key factor in the degradation of properties of engineered materials and structures. Fatigue can also induce damage and fracture in natural biomaterials, such as bone, and in synthetic biomaterials used in implant devices. However, the mechanisms by which mechanical fatigue leads to deterioration of physical properties and contributes to the onset and progression of pathological states in biological cells have hitherto not been systematically explored. Here we present a general method that employs amplitude-modulated electrodeformation and microfluidics for characterizing mechanical fatigue in single biological cells. This method is capable of subjecting cells to static loads for prolonged periods of time or to large numbers of controlled mechanical fatigue cycles. We apply the method to measure the systematic changes in morphological and biomechanical characteristics of healthy human red blood cells (RBCs) and their membrane mechanical properties. Under constant amplitude cyclic tensile deformation, RBCs progressively lose their ability to stretch with increasing fatigue cycles. Our results further indicate that loss of deformability of RBCs during cyclic deformation is much faster than that under static deformation at the same maximum load over the same accumulated loading time. Such fatigue-induced deformability loss is more pronounced at higher amplitudes of cyclic deformation. These results uniquely establish the important role of mechanical fatigue in influencing physical properties of biological cells. They further provide insights into the accumulated membrane damage during blood circulation, paving the way for further investigations of the eventual failure of RBCs causing hemolysis in various hemolytic pathologies.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/103697
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49988
ISSN: 0027-8424
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1910336116
Schools: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering 
School of Materials Science & Engineering 
Rights: © 2019 The Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Fulltext Permission: open
Fulltext Availability: With Fulltext
Appears in Collections:MSE Journal Articles
SCBE Journal Articles

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