Study of the relationship between electrophoretic mobility of the diabetic red blood cell and hemoglobin A1c by using a mini-cell electrophoresis apparatus.

A mini-cell electrophoresis system using capillary tubing (50 microm inner diameter, length ca. 10 mm and volume ca. 20 nL) was applied to measure the electrophoretic mobility of red blood cells of 89 patients with diabetes on single cell level. A significant negative correlation was observed between hemoglobin A1c and the average electrophoretic mobility, with a correlation coefficient of 0.793. By statistically processing the electrophoretic mobility of each single red blood cell, it became clear that the reduction of the average value of electrophoretic mobility was caused by the reduction of the relative frequency of the red blood cell with high mobility. The cause of the average reduction was not the shift of electrophoretic mobility of all red blood cells to the lower mobility.