DEFORMABILITY OF RED-BLOOD-CELLS FROM DIFFERENT SPECIES STUDIED BY RESISTIVE PULSE-SHAPE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE

The Cell Transit Analyzer (CTA) is now being used widely in clinical h emorheology. Most of the data obtained by CTA are limited to human blo od, although the CTA has an important potential to be used in experime ntal studies on animal models. However, behavior of red blood cells (R BC) from various species might be different in CTA, Eight parameters r eflecting different aspects of cell passage through pores with 5 mu m diameter and 15 mu m length were determined or human, guinea pig, dog, rabbit, rat, mouse and sheep RBC, together with instrument precision and biological variation, These parameters have a wide range when meas ured in different species and correlate with cell volume. Sensitivity of these parameters to the glutaraldehyde-induced alterations in IBC d eformability was not same for different laboratory mammals, The main r eason for this difference seems to be related to the cell size and thu s sensitivity might be significantly limited if 5 mu m pore-size filte rs are used to test the smaller RBC. The results of this study may hel p in designing experimental studies on laboratory mammals using the CT A.