In silico biophysics and rheology of blood and red blood cells in Gaucher Disease
Fig 6
Schematic diagram of different RBC disaggregation thresholds (A) and corresponding simulation results (B and C) of the relative viscosity of blood for different RBC disaggregation thresholds and hematocrit levels with shear modulus of 9Es0.
A) Representation of three different glucocerebroside accumulation through the Morse potential between constituents of different RBCs. Here, the presence of more blue vertices corresponds to a stronger RBC disaggregation threshold. The severe condition corresponds to the highest RBC disaggregation threshold of 680 s−1 in the experiment; the moderate condition corresponds to a threshold of 250 s−1; and the mild condition corresponds to a threshold of 150 s−1, as defined in Table 1.; B) The steady shear relative viscosity versus imposed shear rate for three different hematocrit levels and four different RBC disaggregation thresholds at each hematocrit. The viscosities are normalized by the plasma viscosity; the effect of RBC disaggregation thresholds disappears at high shear rates when it causes no stable cell-cell adhesion; C) Relative viscosity against hematocrit for different shear rates and four different RBC disaggregation thresholds of 150, 250, 350 and 680 s−1. In the simulation, we added an intermediate threshold of 350 s−1 to reduce the large gap between 250 s−1 and 680 s−1.