A fast microfluidic device to measure the deformability of red blood cells

Abstract

We report a microfluidic device to determine the shear elastic modulus and the Youngs modulus of red blood cells (RBCs). Our device consists of a single channel opening into a funnel, with a semi-circular obstacle placed at the mouth of the funnel. As a RBC passes the obstacle, it deflects from its original path. Using populations of artificially-stiffened RBCs, we show that the stiffer RBCs deflect more compared to the normal RBCs. We use calibration curves obtained from numerical simulations to map a trajectory of each RBC to its elastic constants. Our estimates of the shear elastic modulus and the Youngs modulus of normal RBCs are within the same range of values reported in the literature using AFM, optical tweezers and micropipette measurements. We also estimate indirectly the elongation index of normal and artificially hardened RBCs from their tracks, without any direct observation of their shapes. Finally, we sort a mixed population of RBCs based on their deformability alone. Our device could potentially be further miniaturized to sort and obtain the elastic constants of nanoscale objects, whose shape change is difficult to monitor by optical microscopy.