Bending Energy Schemes for Discrete-Spring-Network Structural Modelling of Red Blood Cells.

ABSTRACT: Red blood cells (RBCs) undergo large structural deformation, including bending, when passing through capillaries. They also exhibit a range of complex shapes such as stomatocytes, discocytes and echinocytes that form due to altered blood pH and salt levels, ingested drugs and adenosine triphosphate depletion. Discrete-spring-network structural models of RBCs employ different numerical treatments of the continuum bending energy. This affects bending accuracy and the prediction of accurate RBC shapes. This research compares three representations called bending energy scheme (BES) A, B and C to evaluate their accuracy in shape predictions. BES A, seen throughout the literature, is based on the formulations of Kantor and Nelson, while BES B and BES C are, respectively, spring-based and node-ba

SUBMITTER: Ehi-Egharevba O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12628744 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature