Regensburg 2019 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 12: Poster II

BP 12.10: Poster

Dienstag, 2. April 2019, 14:00–16:00, Poster B2

X-ray diffraction studies on bovine red blood cells in microfluidic devices — •Jan-Philipp Burchert¹, Gerrit Brehm¹, Rita Graceffa¹, Manfred Burghammer², and Sarah Köster¹ — ¹Institut für Röntgenphysik, Universität Göttingen, Germany — ²European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France

Red blood cells (RBCs) belong to the major cellular components of blood. They possess a very flexible but stable cytoskeleton below their membrane that is based on an actin-spectrin network. This cortex structure allows them to deform under shear stress and to pass through blood vessels with diameters smaller than their own size. In contrast to other cells, erythrocytes possess no cell organelles. Consequently, their cytoplasm is made up from water and proteins only. One important protein is hemoglobin which is, due to its high volume fraction, proposed to play a role in cell volume regulation. It is suggested that shear forces alter the equilibrium between aggregated and single hemoglobin inside the cell resulting in a change of cytoplasmic properties close to the cell membrane. Thereby, membrane proteins such as pumps and channels might be influenced. In our experiments, bovine RBCs flow through a microfluidic capillary device that simulates shear forces of different magnitudes. Moreover, different osmotic conditions are taken into consideration. To examine the aggregation state of hemoglobin for these experiments, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is applied at different positions within the device. The resulting scattering images are related to the concentration and velocity fields simulated by finite element simulations.