(164ab) Red and White Blood Cell Magnetic Analysis and Separation: Potential for Hematologic Disease Diagnosis

Separation of red and white blood cells from the blood is of paramount importance for medical research; the diagnosis of different pathologies and the evolution of an individual health status are primarily assessed by performing a blood test [1]. Multiple technologies have been developed for the fast and economical separation of blood cells, from them, label-free techniques are interesting because of their several advantages [2]. Since some types of blood cells (erythrocytes and monocytes) have a high iron content [3], magnetophoresis can be performed to isolate these cells without the need of magnetic labels (or magnetic beads). Nevertheless, information about the iron distribution in RBC and monocyte populations in healthy and disease blood needs to be available before any magnetophoretic device can be commercialized for blood separations. In this work, the magnetic mobility, susceptibility, and iron/hemoglobin concentration of red blood cells (RBCs) and monocytes obtained from healthy donors and patients with hematologic diseases (anemias) will be reported. We hypothesize that whereas the magnetic character of RBCs in anemic patients will be abnormal and will show more diamagnetism, the percentage of magnetic monocytes will be higher and might be an indicator of disease. The relationship between the number of magnetic white blood cells (monocytes), RBCs and the presence of hematologic diseases has never been investigated before. Thus, this work will provide important insight into the iron recycling mechanisms in disease and could open the door to the use of simple and economical magnetic devices to diagnose hematologic disorders.

REFERENCES

1. Green, R., & Wachsmann-Hogiu, S. (2015). Development, History, and Future of Automated Cell Counters. Clinics in Laboratory Medicine, 35(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cll.2014.11.003
2. Munaz, A., Shiddiky, M. J. A., & Nguyen, N.-T. (2018). Recent advances and current challenges in magnetophoresis based micro magnetofluidics. Biomicrofluidics, 12(3), 031501. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5035388
3. Kim, J., Gómez‐Pastora, J., Weigand, M., Potgieter, M., A. Walters, N., Reátegui, E., F. Palmer, A., Yazer, M., Zborowski, M., & Chalmers, J. J. (2019). A Subpopulation of Monocytes in Normal Human Blood Has Significant Magnetic Susceptibility: Quantification and Potential Implications. Cytometry Part A, 95(5), 478–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/cyto.a.23755