Transit characteristics of a neutrophil passing through a circular constriction in a cylindrical capillary vessel (Effect of mechanical properties of the cell and constriction geometry)

The former analysis of neutrophil's transit through pulmonary capillary network used the result of a micropipette aspiration experiment to model the transit in single capillary segment despite blunt tip geometry of the pipette is largely different from the real capillary segment. In the previous work, we have numerically investigated the transit of passive and fMLP-stimulated neutrophils through an arc-shaped constriction, establishing the analytical expression for the transit time. This paper intends to give a simplified model for the transit of a neutrophil through a capillary segment based on the numerical analysis and the stress-strain relationship of a Maxwell material. It is shown that the transit time is in proportion to the viscosity of the cell and in inverse proportion to the square root of the curvature radius of the constriction. The definition of the driving pressure of the cell into a micropipette is also applicable to that into the constriction.