CENTRIFUGAL METHOD OF DETERMINING RED-CELL DEFORMABILITY

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 51  (4) , 693-701
Abstract
A recently developed technique for deforming [human] red blood cells (RBC) in which they are centrifuged through buffer and into a glutaraldehyde solution was evaluated as a method of assessing cellular deformability (i.e., the ability of the entire RBC to form a new configuration). To accomplish this, RBC populations of differing cellular deformability were tested, using 3 generally accepted techniques to obtain these differences: partial fixation with low concentrations of glutaraldehyde, density fractionation and suspension of RBC in nonisotonic media. At a constant deforming force the mean deformed length of the RBC apparently decreased under conditions where cellular deformability decreases, thus suggesting the usefulness of this centrifugal method for the estimation of this cellular property.