Objective: Diabetic red blood cells (RBCs) exhibit increased stiffness compared to their healthy counterparts. In our prior work, we successfully developed a microfluidic device for measuring cellular stiffness at the single-cell level. This study investigates the potential of utilizing RBC stiffness measurements to predict HbA1c levels.
Methods: The study adhered to the approved protocol of the Public Institutional Review Board designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea. Blood samples were collected from fingertip punctures and diluted in Dulbecco's Phosphate Buffered Saline solution. All experiments were completed within 30 minutes of blood collection. Individual RBCs traversed a micro-sized fluidic channel, with their transit times serving as a representation of cellular stiffness.
Results: Stiffness analysis was conducted on over 500 RBCs from each participant. Histogram analysis revealed a diverse stiffness distribution with a wide range. Notably, the stiffness distribution of RBCs varied between HbA1c groups, with the higher HbA1c group exhibiting a greater proportion of stiffer RBCs compared to the group with lower HbA1c levels.
Conclusion: Our result is the first to report the proportionality between HbA1c level and cellular stiffness of RBCs. We believe that cellular stiffness measurements would be a groundbreaking metric for A1c testing, free from conventional protein quantification.
E. Park: None. S. Kang: None. U. Ko: None.
