Experimental Demonstration of Flow-Dependent Concentration Polarization of Plasma Proteins at a Blood / Endothelium Boundary by Optically Measuring the Concentration Profile of Flowing Microspheres through a Straight Tube with a Semipermeable Wall

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It is we11 accepted that hemodynamics plays an important role in atherogenesis in man. However, the precise mechanisms have not been elucidated yet. Recently, Karino et al. hypothesized that flow-dependent concentration polarization of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) may occur at a blood / endothelium boundary, leading to a high risk of atherogenesis in regions of low wall shear rate where the concentration of LDL builds up. In this study, we attempted to experimentally confirm their predictions by optically measuring the concentration profile of polystyrene latex microspheres in a suspension flowing through a dialysis tube. It was found that the surface concentration of microsphere certainly increases with decreasing the flow rate and it occurs even under the condition of a very low water filtration velocity encountered in normal arteries in vivo, giving a strong support to the hypothesis proposed by Karino et al.