Abstract
It is known that neutrophils are retained in pulmonary microvasculature causing higher concentration than in large systemic vessels. Neutrophils have to undergo large deformation in passing through the narrow capillaries, and their low deformability is thought to lead the long-term retention in the pulmonary capillaries. In this research, the authors numerically investigated the passage of the cells through a narrow capillary network for three levels of the cell stiffness. It was shown that transit time of the cells through the network was not proportion to the cell stiffness, that is, the transit time did not increase as much as the increase in the cell stiffness. Then, the authors analytically investigated the effect of the cell stiffness on the transit time of a cell through the network from a mathematical model to predict the transit time of a cell through a single capillary segment.
