Quantification of stored red blood cells fluctuations by time-lapse holographic cell imaging

We propose methods to quantitatively calculate fluctuations rate with nanometric axial and millisecond temporal sensitivity at the single-cell level by using time-lapse holographic cell imaging. For this quantitative analysis, cell membrane fluctuations (CMFs) were measured for RBCs stored at different storage times.

Measurements were taken over the whole membrane for both the ring and dimple sections separately. The measurements show that healthy RBCs that maintain their discocyte shape become stiffer with storage time. The correlation analysis demonstrates a significant negative correlation between CMFs and the sphericity coefficient which characterizes the morphological type of erythrocyte.