Non-uniform distribution of myosin-mediated forces governs red blood cell membrane curvature through tension modulation
Fig 3
Mismatch between the parametric shape of an experimentally observed RBC (Eq 6) and the shapes obtained from simulations (Eqs. S10 in S1 Text) with a uniform distribution of the pulling force density across the membrane surface. (A) RZ view of the center of an RBC from a confocal Z-stack of an RBC stained for the membrane marker glycophorin A. (B) Schematic of a biconcave RBC with a uniform distribution of the normal pulling force density (red arrows). Funiform represents the magnitude of the pulling force density. (C) Calculated error in the characteristic length scales (Eq 7), and total shape error (Eq 8) for different values of the force density. The total shape error (ϵtotal) calculated by Eq 8 is minimum for Funiform = 1.83 pN/μm2, when there is only a mismatch in the maximum height of the RBC morphology (center bar). For all three values of the applied uniform force densities, the calculated volume (V) is shown on the X-axis and is significantly different from the reported experimental data.