Computational analysis of nitric oxide biotransport in a microvessel influenced by red blood cells

Publication date: Available online 30 April 2019Source: Microvascular ResearchAuthor(s): Yajie Wei, Lizhong Mu, Yuanliang Tang, Zaiyi Shen, Ying HeAbstractIt is pivotal that Nitric Oxide (NO) produced in endothelium, consumed by hemoglobin (Hb) wrapped in red blood cells (RBCs) membrane, regulates the vascular tone. The whole processes of NO transport in vessel containing flowing RBCs is still not clear, such as NO production in endothelium, diffusion in plasma and consumption inside RBCs. In this work, the motion of RBCs in a microvessel is investigated by using immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) first and the deformability of RBC is expressed by using spring network model which is based on the minimum energy principle. Furthermore, the interaction between RBCs is considered. Based on the wall shear stress (WSS), NO production rate originated from endothelium was obtained by using a hyperbolic model. NO distribution inside the microvessel with multiple RBCs was computed by using immersed boundary finite difference method (IB-FDM). The result shows that a large (small) WSS exists at locations with a relatively wide(narrow) gap between wall and cell. In terms of mass transfer, an increase of RBC membrane permeability lead to a decrease of NO concentration in the vessel and surrounding endothelium significantly. In addition, with the increasing of hematocrit (Hct) value, NO concentration distribution in the whole vessel decreases both in the lumen and vascular ...

Source: Microvascular Research - May 1, 2019 Category: Biochemistry Source Type: research