Effects of acute exposure to hyperbaric oxygen on the rheology and morphology of the red blood cells in the rat.

The effects of acute exposure to hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) on the rheology and morphology of red blood cells (RBC) were studied in three groups of Sprague-Dawley rats: a control (CON) group comprised rats not exposed to HBO, a second group was exposed to HBO at 2.8 atm for 6 hr and studied immediately after the exposure (HBO), and a third group was examined after being allowed to recover in room air for 24 hr after exposure to HBO (REC). RBC deformability was assessed by two different techniques, the ektacytometer and the micropore filters. While the ektacytometer did not detect a significant difference among the three groups, the filtration method showed that acute exposure to HBO causes a significant increase in the filtration index (FI), denoting a significant reduction in RBC deformability. However, this reduction returned to the control level after 24 hr of recovery in air (FI, 7.1 +/- 1.2 in CON and 9.5 +/- 2.6 in REC compared to 36.2 +/- 3.7 in HBO, P < 0.0001). The morphology of RBC was studied by scanning electron microscopy. Immediately after exposure to HBO there was a marked increase in the echinocytes (41.6 +/- 5.9%) compared to a control level of 16.7 +/- 4.8%, P < 0.05. The increase in the echinocytes became less pronounced after 24 hr of recovery (23.5 +/- 9.3%). In conclusion, acute exposure to HBO causes significant alterations in RBC rheology and morphology. Due to the sensitivity of the micropore filters, we hypothesize that the decrease in RBC deformability might affect their flow through small-caliber blood vessels. These alterations, however, are reversible after a relatively short period of recovery in air.

Cellular deformability of normoxic and hypoxic mammalian red blood cells.

The deformability of red blood cells is important in the microcirculation where capillary diameters are often smaller than those of the red blood cells. In the present study, ektacytometry was used to examine the effect of hypoxia on the deformability of red blood cells from five mammalian species: Human, cat, rat, rabbit, and dog. Deformability was characterized in both normoxic (PO2 = 129 +/- 6 mm Hg) and hypoxic (PO2 = 47 +/- 6 mm Hg) conditions in two different ways. First, we used the Elongation Index (EI) which quantitates the extent of elongation of red blood cells in response to increasing fluid shear stress; second, we used the Elongation Constant (EC), which quantitates the exponential dependence of the fraction of maximal elongation on the varying shear stress. The EI was measured at high shear stresses (150-250 dyn/cm2), as well as at lower shear stresses (15, 32 and 64 dyn/cm2) that occur in the microcirculation. In response to hypoxia at high shear stresses, the EI of the rat red blood cells decreased by 9.3% (P < 0.05), but was not altered in the other four species studied. Moreover, in all five species, the EC and EI at the lower shear stresses were unaltered in response to hypoxia. These ektacytometry experiments indicate that (1) the elongation constant is a new and useful parameter for characterizing the deformability of red blood cells and (2), the deformability of human, cat, dog, and rabbit red blood cells is unaltered by hypoxia. The results constrain the possible mechanisms that could account for the observation that hypoxia decreases the filterability of certain species of red blood cells, which was reported previously.