Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 33, Pages 13356-13361Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1311827110
Keywords
coarse graining; worm-like chain; multiscale modeling; adhesion energy; erythrocyte
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01HL094270]
- Department of Energy Collaboratory on Mathematics for Mesoscopic Modeling of Materials [CM4]
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Center
- Singapore MIT Alliance (SMA)
- Swiss National Supercomputer Center [s311, s340]
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We study the biomechanical interactions between the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton in a red blood cell (RBC) by developing a general framework for mesoscopic simulations. We treated the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton as two distinct components and developed a unique whole-cell model of the RBC, using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD). The model is validated by comparing the predicted results with measurements from four different and independent experiments. First, we simulated the micropipette aspiration and quantified the cytoskeletal deformation. Second, we studied the membrane fluctuations of healthy RBCs and RBCs parasitized to different intraerythrocytic stages by the malaria-inducing parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Third, we subjected the RBC to shear flow and investigated the dependence of its tank-treading frequency on shear rate. Finally, we simulated the bilayer-cytoskeletal detachment in channel flow to quantify the strength of such interactions when the corresponding bonds break. Taken together, these experiments and corresponding systematic DPD simulations probe the governing constitutive response of the cytoskeleton, elastic stiffness, viscous friction, and strength of bilayer-cytoskeletal interactions as well as membrane viscosities. Hence, the DPD simulations and comparisons with available independent experiments serve as validation of the unique two-component model and lead to useful insights into the biomechanical interactions between the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton of the RBC. Furthermore, they provide a basis for further studies to probe cell mechanistic processes in health and disease in a manner that guides the design and interpretation of experiments and to develop simulations of phenomena that cannot be studied systematically by experiments alone.
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