The Effects of Ethanol on the Morphological and Biochemical Properties of Individual Human Red Blood Cells

Abstract

Here, we report the results of a study on the effects of ethanol exposure on human red blood cells (RBCs) using quantitative phase imaging techniques at the level of individual cells. Three-dimensional refractive index tomograms and dynamic membrane fluctuations of RBCs were measured using common-path diffraction optical tomography, from which morphological (volume, surface area, and sphericity); biochemical (hemoglobin (Hb) concentration and Hb content); and biomechanical (membrane fluctuation) parameters were retrieved at various concentrations of ethanol. RBCs exposed to the ethanol concentration of 0.1 and 0.3% v/v exhibited cell sphericities higher than those of normal cells. However, mean surface area and sphericity of RBCs in a lethal alcoholic condition (0.5% v/v) are not statistically different with those of healthy RBCs. Meanwhile, significant decreases of Hb content and concentration in RBC cytoplasm at the lethal condition were observed. Furthermore, dynamic fluctuation of RBC membranes increased significantly upon ethanol treatments, indicating ethanol-induced membrane fluidization.

Label-free identification of non-activated lymphocytes using three-dimensional refractive index tomography and machine learning

“…Previously, ODT has been widely used to study various biological samples including red blood cells [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] however, we were unable to identify lymphocyte cell types due to their indistinguishable cellular morphology and biochemical characteristics.…”

“…Previously, ODT has been widely used to study various biological samples including red blood cells [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] , white blood cells (WBC) 23,24 , hepatocytes 25 , cancer cells 16,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32] , neurons 32,33 , bacteria 34,35 , phytoplankton 36 , and hair 37 . In our previous study, we reported that ODT enables the quantitative analysis of WBCs including lymphocytes and macrophages 23 .…”

Tomographic phase microscopy: principles and applications in bioimaging [Invited]

“…RBC is one of most popular candidates due to its special biconcave shape and simple inner structures [100–104] [Fig. 7(a)].…”

“…To quantify Hb, mean corpuscular Hb concentration (MCHC) and mean corpuscular Hb content (MCH) are being used for medical diagnosis on a daily basis in medical laboratories [120]. MCHC and MCH values can be measured with TPM, which can be used to quantitatively investigate the responses of RBCs to exogenous stimuli or their endogenous functional disorders [52,54,102–104]. By comparing the MCHC and MCH values of RBCs from healthy humans and patients with iron deficiency anemia (IDA), high reticulocyte content, and hereditary spherocytosis, Kim et al [120] found that the IDA RBCs have significantly decreased MCH values, whereas reticulocytes have relatively larger MCH values, which is consistent with the fact that the oxygen carrying capacity of RBCs is primarily determined by the amount of Hb.…”

GPU-based deep convolutional neural network for tomographic phase microscopy with ℓ1 fitting and regularization

“…[4][5][6] The label-free and noninvasive character makes it attractive in biomedical imaging, especially for cultured cells. 7,8 However, most of the current methods require around 50 quantitative phase images acquired at different angles [9][10][11] or different depths 6 for optical tomography. This speed limitation greatly restricts its field of applications.…”