Analysis of Mechanical Behavior of Red Blood Cell Membrane with Malaria Infection

Human red blood cells (RBCs) are responsible to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide for human bodies. The physiological functions of RBCs are greatly influenced by their mechanical properties. When RBC is infected by Malaria parasite called Plasmodium falciparum, it shows progressive changes in mechanical properties and loses its deformability. The infected red blood cells (IRBCs) develop properties of cytoadherence (stickiness) and rosetting (the binding of non-infected RBCs to parasitized RBCs). In this paper to analyze the mechanical properties and deformability of the IRBC, we applied stress-stretch ratio relation of its biomembrane .To express this constitutive relation, we proposed a mathematical model (Neo-Hookean model) based on membrane theory. On this model, we present continuous stress-stretch ratio curves for the relation derived from the model for different intracellular developmental stages of the parasite, to determine the mechanical properties of IRBC. The analytical results obtained from the mathematical model are more closed with the experimental data [1] which demonstrates the validity of the model. By restricting our attention to spherically symmetric deformation in the final schizont stage of parasite development, the pressure-extension ratio relation curve also adapted from the proposed strain energy function. The change in osmotic pressure versus volumetric ratio has been also considered for IRBC before hemolysis.