Impact of Channel Geometry on the Discrimination of Mechanically Impaired Red Blood Cells in Passive Microfluidics

Abstract

In this work, we aimed at the discrimination of mechanically impaired red blood cells (RBCs) using passive microfluidic approaches. We investigated the impact of the channel geometry on the behavior of healthy RBCs (hRBCs) and thermally rigidified RBCs (T-rRBCs) flowing in (i) a Unique and Long Constriction (ULC) and (ii) a series of Oscillating Width Constrictions (OWC). To confront the two geometries, we evaluated potential biomarkers for cell discrimination such as their speed V, deformation index D and relaxation time τ.

Keywords

• passive microfluidics
• Red Blood Cells (RBC)
• mechanical characterization
• deformability