Depletant induced attractions in red blood cells

Abstract

Red blood cells suspended in plasma are able to aggregate into linearly stacked rouleau. The aggregations can form complex clusters and branching networks which cause complications in various pathological cases. The self assembly and biophysics behind the aggregation of red blood cells into rouleau remains underexplored. This thesis employs coarse-grained molecular simulations to model erythrocytes in a disperse limit subject to short range implicit depletion forces. This work demonstrates that the depletant interaction is sufficient to account for sudden transitions into aggregate states. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that the specific volume fraction of depletants is directly linked to the morphologies of the aggregate states observed.