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Updated: Aug 22, 2026

Measuring Deformability and Red Cell Heterogeneity in Blood by Ektacytometry
Published on: January 12, 2018
Effect of carbonyl compounds on red blood cells deformability
Hiroyoshi Iwata1, Hiroyuki Ukeda, Tohru Maruyama
1Department of Bioresources Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Kochi University, Monobe B-200, Nankoku 783-8502, Japan.
Abstract:
The effect of Maillard reaction on red blood cells (RBC) deformability was investigated. Exposure of RBC to carbonyl compounds (dl-glyceraldehyde, glyoxal, glycolaldehyde, 3-deoxyglucosone, and d-glucose) leading to Maillard reaction caused a marked decrease in RBC deformability even at 1mM level. The decrease rate depended on the kind of carbonyl compounds, in which both dl-glyceraldehyde and glyoxal significantly decreased the RBC deformability (p<0.05). In addition, the decrease rate also differed among volunteers tested, indicating that the sensitivity against carbonyl compounds varies among them. In order to elucidate the mechanism of the decrease in RBC deformability, RBC was exposed to carbonyl compounds in the presence of aminoguanidine which is the inhibitor of AGE formation in Maillard reactions. Aminoguanidine inhibited the decrease in RBC deformability by dl-glyceraldehyde and glyoxal. When Hb which has a high reactivity with carbonyl compounds was incubated with those carbonyl compounds, dl-glyceraldehyde and glyoxal showed the high reactivity with Hb compared with other carbonyl compounds. These results indicate that Maillard reaction between RBC proteins and carbonyl compounds leads to the decrease in RBC deformability. On the other hand, O(2)(-) generated by carbonyl compounds involved in lowering the deformability only to a negligible level.
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