Catch bonds in sickle cell disease: shear-enhanced adhesion of red blood cells to laminin

Abstract

Could the phenomenon of catch bonding—force-strengthened cellular adhesion—play a role in sickle cell disease, where abnormal red blood cell (RBC) adhesion obstructs blood flow? Here we investigate the dynamics of sickle RBCs adhering to a surface functionalized with the protein laminin (a component of the extracellular matrix around blood vessels) under physiologically relevant micro-scale flow. First, using total internal reflectance microscopy we characterize the spatial fluctuations of the RBC membrane above the laminin surface before detachment. The complex dynamics we observe suggest the possibility of catch bonding, where the mean detachment time of the cell from the surface initially increases to a maximum and then decreases as a function of shear force. We next conduct a series of shear-induced detachment experiments on blood samples from 25 sickle cell disease patients, quantifying the number and duration of adhered cells under both sudden force jumps and linear force ramps. The experiments reveal that a subset of patients does indeed exhibit catch bonding. By fitting the data to a theoretical model of the bond dynamics, we can extract the mean bond lifetime versus force for each patient. The results show a striking heterogeneity among patients, both in terms of the qualitative behavior (whether or not there is catch bonding) and in the magnitudes of the lifetimes. Patients with large bond lifetimes at physiological forces are more likely to have certain adverse clinical features, like a diagnosis of pulmonary arterial hypertension and intracardiac shunts. By introducing an in vitro platform for fully characterizing RBC-laminin adhesion dynamics, our approach could contribute to the development of patient-specific anti-adhesive therapies for sickle cell disease. The experimental setup is also easily generalizable to studying adhesion dynamics in other cell types, for example leukocytes or cancer cells, and can incorporate disease-relevant environmental conditions like oxygen deprivation.

Motion Blur Microscopy

“…Therefore, if we are to generate truly meaningful results under in vitro conditions, our methods should strive to reproduce the environment of the microvasculature as much as possible. Researchers have developed a variety of approaches to mimic the microvasculature 26, 27 , but the blood—the main constituent with its full complexity—has always been missing in these microfluidic systems. MBM enables researchers to investigate the dynamics of cellular interactions in the presence of blood flow.…”

Membrane bending and sphingomyelinase-associated, sulfatide-dependent hypoxic adhesion of sickle mature erythrocytes

“…5 HbS-containing erythrocytes undergo deleterious membrane changes and become abnormally adhesive, dense, and less deformable. [5][6][7][8][9] HbS polymerization affects both reticulocytes (nucleic acid-bearing immature red blood cells) and mature erythrocytes. Most well studied sickle red blood cell adhesion mechanisms involve adhesion through proteins including integrins and BCAM/LU, [10][11][12][13][14] which are more relevant to reticulocyte phenotype rather than mature erythrocyte phenotype.…”