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National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 5(112), p. 1422-1427, 2015

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1424111112

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Kinetics of sickle cell biorheology and implications for painful vasoocclusive crisis

Journal article published in 2015 by E. Du ORCID, Monica Diez-Silva, Gregory J. Kato, Ming Dao ORCID, Subra Suresh
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance A major challenge with in vitro investigations of the pathophysiological processes in sickle cell disease (SCD) has been the lack of a well-controlled microenvironment to mimic in vivo circulating conditions. The microfluidic platform developed here provides a quantitative assay of the kinetics of cell sickling, unsickling, and single-cell rheology. The ensuing alterations in the biorheological characteristics of sickle cells under hypoxic conditions show strong correlation with sickle hemoglobin level, hydroxyurea (HU) therapy, and cell density. These analyses provide cell-level perspectives of the clinical manifestations in SCD patients and offer unique diagnostic indicators of vasoocclusion and disease severity. These results could also provide alternative pathways to supplement current clinical practices to evaluate HU therapy.