Mechanical fatigue of human red blood cells
Mechanical fatigue of human red blood cells
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1910336116
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发表时间：
2019-10-01
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Du, E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Qiang, Yuhao;Liu, Jia;Du, E.
循环应变引起的疲劳是工程材料和结构性能退化的关键因素。疲劳还会导致天然生物材料的损伤和骨折，如骨，以及用于植入设备的合成生物材料。然而，机械疲劳导致生物细胞的物理性质恶化和病理状态的发生和发展的机制到目前为止还没有得到系统的探索。在这里，我们提出了一种通用的方法，利用调幅电形变和微流体来表征单个生物细胞的机械疲劳。这种方法能够使细胞承受较长时间的静态载荷或承受大量受控的机械疲劳循环。我们应用该方法测量了健康人红细胞的形态和生物力学特性及其膜机械特性的系统变化。在恒幅循环拉伸变形下，随着疲劳循环次数的增加，红细胞逐渐失去拉伸能力。我们的结果进一步表明，在相同的累积加载时间下，在相同的最大载荷下，红细胞在循环变形过程中的变形能力的损失比在静态变形下的要快得多。这种疲劳引起的变形能力损失在循环变形的幅度越大时越明显。这些结果独一无二地确立了机械疲劳在影响生物细胞物理性质中的重要作用。他们进一步提供了对血液循环中累积的膜损伤的洞察，为进一步研究红细胞在各种溶血病理中导致溶血的最终失效铺平了道路。
Fatigue arising fromcyclic 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 micro-fluidics 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.