Morphological Changes in Erythrocytes of People with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Evaluated with Atomic Force Microscopy: A Brief Review

Aim: To evaluate by AFM the erythrocytes morphological changes of people with T2DM METHODS: Search was conducted from in PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scielo, and Lilacs. Erythrocyte, type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and, Microscopy, Atomic Force were the keywords used for the search. Papers included were cross-sectional studies performed in humans.

Results: Five of seven articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Compared with healthy cells, the erythrocytes from individuals affected by T2DM had morphological changes such as a decreased concave depth, diameter, height and a deformation index, while axial ratio, stiffness, adhesive force, aggregation, and rigidity index were increased. The results regarding the erythrocyte roughness were inconclusive.

Conclusions: The AFM is an excellent instrument to study the altered erythrocytes of subjects affected by T2DM. Morphology changes in erythrocytes could lead to cardiovascular events, which are major complications in people living with this disease.