RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 ELEMENT-FREE MULTISCALE MODELING OF LARGE DEFORMATION BEHAVIOR OF RED BLOOD CELL MEMBRANE WITH MALARIA INFECTION JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 136648 DO 10.1101/136648 A1 A.S. Ademiloye A1 L.W. Zhang A1 K.M. Liew YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/11/136648.abstract AB In normal physiological and healthy conditions, red blood cells (RBCs) deform readily as they pass through the microcapillaries and the spleen. In this paper, we examine the effects of Plasmodium falciparum infection and maturation on the large deformation behavior of malaria-infected red blood cells (iRBCs) by means of a three-dimensional (3D) multiscale meshfree method. We numerically simulated the optical tweezers experiment and observed the force-displacement response of the iRBC membrane as malaria infection progresses. Our simulation results agree well with experimental data and confirm that the deformability of malaria-infected cells decreases significantly as malaria infection progresses.