Depletion of high molecular weight dextran from the red cell surface measured by particle electrophoresis.

The reversible aggregation of human red blood cells (RBC) by proteins or polymers continues to be of biological and biophysical interest, yet the mechanistic details governing the process are still being explored. A depletion model has been proposed for aggregation by the neutral polyglucose dextran and its applicability at high molecular weights has been recently documented. In the present study the depletion of high molecular weight dextrans on the red cell surface was measured as a function of polymer molecular mass (40 kDa-28 MDa), ionic strength (5 and 15 mM NaCl) and polymer concentration (< or =0.9 g/dL). The experimental data clearly indicate an increasing depletion effect with increasing molecular weight: the effects of medium viscosity on RBC mobility were markedly overestimated by the Helmholtz-Smoluchowski relation, with the difference increasing with dextran molecular mass. These results agree with the concept of polymer depletion near the RBC surface and lend strong support to a "depletion model" mechanism for dextran-mediated RBC aggregation. Our findings provide important new insight into polymer-RBC interactions and suggest the usefulness of this model for fundamental studies of cell-cell affinity and for the development of new agents to stabilize or destabilize specific bio-fluids.

Impact of glycocalyx structure on red cell-red cell affinity in polymer suspensions.

A theoretical framework based on macromolecular depletion has been utilized in order to examine the energetics of red blood cell interactions. Three different glycocalyx structures are considered and cell-cell affinities are calculated by superposition of depletion, steric and electrostatic interactions. The theoretical model predicts a non-monotonic dependence of the interaction energies on polymer size. Further, our results indicate that the glycocalyx segment distribution has a large impact on adhesion energies between cells: a linear segment distribution induces the strongest adhesion between cells followed by pseudo-tail and uniform distributions. Our approach confirms the concept of a depletion mechanism for RBC aggregation, and also provides new insights that may eventually help to understand and quantify cellular factors that control red blood cell interactions in health and disease.