Element-Free Multiscale Modeling of Large Deformation Behavior of Red Blood Cell Membrane With Malaria Infection

Abstract

SUMMARYIn normal physiological and healthy conditions, red blood cells (RBCs) deform readily as they pass through the microcapillaries and the spleen. In this paper, we examine the effects of Plasmodium falciparum infection and maturation on the large deformation behavior of malaria-infected red blood cells (iRBCs) by means of a three-dimensional (3D) multiscale meshfree method. We numerically simulated the optical tweezers experiment and observed the force-displacement response of the iRBC membrane as malaria infection progresses. Our simulation results agree well with experimental data and confirm that the deformability of malaria-infected cells decreases significantly as malaria infection progresses.

Meshfree and Particle Methods in Biomechanics: Prospects and Challenges

“…Wang et al [279,280] also implemented a nanoscale quasi-continuum (QC) model for exploring the mechanical behaviors of human erythrocyte membranes using the higher order Cauchy-Born rule and meshfree method. A 3D multiscale Cauchy-Born meshfree model was proposed by Ademiloye and co-workers [281,282] as an improvement to the 2D QC model employed in [279,280,283] for numerical modeling of the deformability of RBC membrane parasitized by Plasmodium falciparum. This methodology and its semi-analytical variant has been employed to examined the large deformation behavior [284,285] of healthy RBC membrane, biomechanical properties of malaria-infected RBC membrane [286] as well as the effects of thermal treatments on healthy RBC membrane deformability [287] and its biomechanical responses under various loading conditions [288,289].…”