CFD CHARACTERIZATION OF FLOW PATTERN AROUND ENDOTHELIAL CELL IN DENGUE INFECTION WITH PLASMA LEAKAGE

Abstract

Plasma leakage is the pathological hall mark in dengue infection and may cause fatal condition to the patients. In this paper, the CFD (computational fluid dynamic) model is adopted to characterize the flow on the endothelial cells surface with plasma leakage based on in vitro experiments of HUVEC (human umbilical vein endothelial cell) culture on the permeable membrane. The computational domain used is a simplified model of single cell. At the leading edge of the domain and among the membranes, the gaps are modeled as a representation of cell-cell junction breakdown caused by dengue virus infection.  The result shows that at the leading edge , the fluid starts to move more quickly and increases to the maximum value at the middle of the cell and then drops to zero at the trailing edge. From the physical point of view, this result describes that there is a variation of the values of the wall shear stress due to the velocity gradient. These results can be considered as a first step to develop the ways of the prevention of the dengue infection through manipulation the shear stress to reduce the potency of dengue virus to attach the cell surface.