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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Measuring Deformability and Red Cell Heterogeneity in Blood by Ektacytometry
Published on: January 12, 2018
Why do red blood cells have asymmetric shapes even in a symmetric flow?
Badr Kaoui1, George Biros, Chaouqi Misbah
1Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Physique, UMR, 140 avenue de la physique, Université Joseph Fourier Grenoble, and CNRS, 38402 Saint Martin d'Heres, France.
Abstract:
Understanding why red blood cells (RBCs) move with an asymmetric shape (slipperlike shape) in small blood vessels is a long-standing puzzle in blood circulatory research. By considering a vesicle (a model system for RBCs), we discovered that the slipper shape results from a loss in stability of the symmetric shape. It is shown that the adoption of a slipper shape causes a significant decrease in the velocity difference between the cell and the imposed flow, thus providing higher flow efficiency for RBCs. Higher membrane rigidity leads to a dramatic change in the slipper morphology, thus offering a potential diagnostic tool for cell pathologies.
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