Hematocrit skewness along sequential bifurcations within a microfluidic network induces significant changes in downstream red blood cell partitioning

There has been a wealth of research conducted regarding the partitioning of red blood cells (RBCs) at bifurcations within the microvasculature. In previous studies, partitioning has been characterized as either regular partitioning, in which the higher flow rate daughter channel receives a proportionally larger percentage of RBCs, or reverse partitioning, in which the opposite occurs. While there are many examples of network studies in silico, most in vitro work has been conducted using single bifurcation. When microfluidic networks have been used, the channel dimensions are typically greater than 20  μm, ignoring conditions where RBCs are highly confined. This paper presents a study of RBC partitioning in a network of sequential bifurcations with channel dimensions less than 8  μm in hydraulic diameter. The study investigated the effect of the volumetric flow rate ratio ( Q*) at each bifurcation, solution hematocrit, and channel length on the erythrocyte flux ratio ( N*), a measure of RBC partitioning. We report significant differences in partitioning between upstream and downstream bifurcations even when the flow rate ratio remains the same. Skewness analysis, a measure of cell distribution across the width of a vessel, strongly suggests that immediately following the first bifurcation most RBCs are skewed toward the inner channel wall, leading to preferential RBC perfusion into one daughter channel at the subsequent bifurcation even at higher downstream flow rate ratios. The skewness of RBC distribution following the first bifurcation can either manifest as enhanced regular partitioning or reverse partitioning at the succeeding branch.