Electroviscous flow and electrophoretic motion during erythrocyte entry in a glass capillary in the presence of applied electric potential gradients.

One means of measuring an effect of erythrocyte deformability on red cell flow is to determine how long it takes erythrocytes to enter or flow through an aperture whose diameter is smaller than 8 micrometers. It is convenient to impose an electric potential difference across the aperture so that the passage of an erythrocyte can be monitored by electronic means. We report here that such electric potential gradients may have a large influence on red cell entry times, primarily through the mechanism of erythrocyte electrophoretic mobility.