White blood cell margination in microcirculation

Fedosov, Dmitry A.; Gompper, Gerhard

doi:10.1039/c3sm52860j

Journal Article

FZJ-2014-03387

White blood cell margination in microcirculation

Fedosov, D. A. (Corresponding Author) ; Gompper, G.FZJ*

2014
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Cambridge

Soft matter 10(17), 2961 -2970 (2014) [10.1039/c3sm52860j]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/22890 doi:10.1039/c3sm52860j

Abstract: Proper functioning of white blood cells is not possible without their ability to adhere to vascular endothelium, which may occur only if they are close enough to vessel walls. To facilitate the adhesion, white blood cells migrate toward the vessel walls in blood flow through a process called margination. The margination of white cells depends on a number of conditions including local hematocrit, flow rate, red blood cell aggregation, and the deformability of both red and white cells. To better understand the margination process of white blood cells, we employ mesoscopic hydrodynamic simulations of a three-dimensional model of blood flow, which has been previously shown to capture quantitatively realistic blood flow properties and rheology. The margination properties of white blood cells are studied for a wide range of hematocrit values and flow conditions. Efficient white blood cell margination is found in an intermediate range of hematocrit values of Ht ≈ 0.2–0.4 and at relatively low flow rates, characteristic of the venular part of microcirculation. In addition, aggregation interactions between red blood cells lead to enhanced white-blood-cell margination. This simulation study provides a quantitative description of the margination of white blood cells, and is also highly relevant for the margination of particles or cells of similar size such as circulating tumor cells.

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