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The mechanism of the dextran-induced red blood cell aggregation

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Abstract

In order to clarify the mechanism of dextran-induced aggregation, the effect of the ionic strength (I) on the minimal shear stress (τ c ) required to rupture RBC doublets was studied for suspensions with the external media containing 76 and 298 kDa dextrans. At low and high ionic strengths, τ c increases with increasing I, whereas at intermediate I values, τ c versus I dependencies reveal a plateau step. The non-monotonous shape of these curves disagrees with the depletion model of RBC aggregation and is consistent with the predictions of the bridging mechanism. Literature reports point out that elastic behavior of dextran molecules in low and high I regions is fairly typical of Hookean springs and hence predict an increase in τ c with increasing I. A plateau step is accounted for by the enthalpic component of the dextran elasticity due to the shear-induced chair–boat transition of the dextran’s glucopyranose rings. A longer plateau step for suspensions with a higher molecular weight dextran is explained by a larger contribution of the enthalpic component to the dextran elasticity. Thus, the results reported in this study provide evidence that RBC aggregation is caused by the formation of dextran bridges between the cells.

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Notes

  1. These two forms may be visualized as follows (Fisher et al. 1999): chair

    figure a

    → boat

    figure b

    .

  2. Since blood is a yield stress material (Yeow et al 2002), its true shear stress differs from the product of \(\eta \dot \gamma.\)

  3. Since D250 was not available at our laboratory, it was assumed that eqs. 5 and 6 obtained for suspensions with D250 describe adequately the shear dependent viscosity of suspensions with D298 which were used to measure the effective steady-state radius of RBC aggregates at different shear rates. Note that literature reports point out that this difference of molecular weights does not measurably affect both RBC aggregation and blood viscosity (Armstrong et al, 2004).

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Acknowledgments

We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Prof. H. J. Meiselman from the University of Southern California (USA) for providing the shear viscosity data. This study was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation, No. 457/02.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Experimental Hematology Laboratory, Physiology Department, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel

    A. Pribush, D. Zilberman-Kravits & N. Meyerstein

  2. Chemistry Department, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    A. Pribush

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Pribush, A., Zilberman-Kravits, D. & Meyerstein, N. The mechanism of the dextran-induced red blood cell aggregation. Eur Biophys J 36, 85–94 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-006-0107-1

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