Mechanical and electrical properties of red blood cells using optical tweezers

Optical tweezers are a very sensitive tool, based on photon momentum transfer, for individual, cell by cell, manipulation and measurements, which can be applied to obtain important properties of erythrocytes for clinical and research purposes. Mechanical and electrical properties of erythrocytes are critical parameters for stored cells in transfusion centers, immunohematological tests performed in transfusional routines and in blood diseases. In this work, we showed methods, based on optical tweezers, to study red blood cells and applied them to measure apparent overall elasticity, apparent membrane viscosity, zeta potential, thickness of the double layer of electrical charges and adhesion in red blood cells.134S

Optical tweezers for studying taxis in parasites

In this work we present a methodology to measure force strengths and directions of living parasites with an optical tweezers setup. These measurements were used to study the parasites chemotaxis in real time. We observed behavior and measured the force of: (i) Leishmania amazonensis in the presence of two glucose gradients; (ii) Trypanosoma cruzi in the vicinity of the digestive system walls, and (iii) Trypanosoma rangeli in the vicinity of salivary glands as a function of distance. Our results clearly show a chemotactic behavior in every case. This methodology can be used to study any type of taxis, such as chemotaxis, osmotaxis, thermotaxis, phototaxis, of any kind of living microorganisms. These studies can help us to understand the microorganism sensory systems and their response function to these gradients.134S