Atorvastatin treatment softens human red blood cells: an optical tweezers study

Vahid Sheikh-Hasani; Mehrad Babaei; Ali Azadbakht; Hamidreza Pazoki-Toroudi; Alireza Mashaghi; Ali Akbar Moosavi-Movahedi; Seyed Nader Seyed Reihani

doi:10.1364/BOE.9.001256

Atorvastatin treatment softens human red blood cells: an optical tweezers study

Biomed Opt Express. 2018 Feb 20;9(3):1256-1261. doi: 10.1364/BOE.9.001256. eCollection 2018 Mar 1.

Authors

Vahid Sheikh-Hasani¹, Mehrad Babaei^{1

2}, Ali Azadbakht^{3

2}, Hamidreza Pazoki-Toroudi⁴, Alireza Mashaghi⁵, Ali Akbar Moosavi-Movahedi^{1

6}, Seyed Nader Seyed Reihani^{3

7}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
² These authors contributed equally to this work.
³ Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Physiology Research Center and Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, Faculty of Science, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁶ sreihani@sharif.edu.
⁷ moosavi@ut.ac.ir.

Abstract

Optical tweezers are proven indispensable single-cell micro-manipulation and mechanical phenotyping tools. In this study, we have used optical tweezers for measuring the viscoelastic properties of human red blood cells (RBCs). Comparison of the viscoelastic features of the healthy fresh and atorvastatin treated cells revealed that the drug softens the cells. Using a simple modeling approach, we proposed a molecular model that explains the drug-induced softening of the RBC membrane. Our results suggest that direct interactions between the drug and cytoskeletal components underlie the drug-induced softening of the cells.

Keywords: (000.1430) Biology and medicine; (170.1420) Biology; (170.4520) Optical confinement and manipulation; (350.4855) Optical tweezers or optical manipulation.