Evolution of surface area and membrane shear modulus of matured human red blood cells during mechanical fatigue

Shape transitions of RBCs during mechanical cycling

In the present experimental data obtained, RBCs were from the fingertip blood of several healthy adult donners. Under the microscope, we found that discoid biconcave-shaped RBCs constituted the largest portion, and cup-shaped cells made up almost all of the remaining portion, while rare-shaped RBCs such as acanthocytes are barely present. The average percentages of the RBCs in biconcave and cup shapes are 68.3% and 31.7% respectively. As the number of cup-shaped cells is much larger than the number of reticulocytes from a healthy donor,…