Analysis of nanoparticle transport in blood flow through microvascular bifurcations*

Delivery of nanoparticle (NP)-mediated drugs to bio-targets requires transport of NPs through microvasculature with bifurcations. The NP interaction with red blood cells (RBCs) and transport mechanism in such complex geometries has remained largely unexplored. In current work, we use an efficient computational approach based on coupled lattice Boltzmann and Langevin Dynamics (LB-LD) for simulating NP transport through microvascular bifurcations. To validate this approach, the blood flow and NP distribution in a chicken embryo bifurcation are measured and reconstructed via the in silico tool. The simulation compares favorably with the in vivo measurements. The LB-LD computational approach is shown to well capture the Brownian and RBC-enhanced NP diffusion and the  Fåhræus effect. The partition of the NP concentration in the daughter branches shows dependence on bifurcation angle and contraction ratio.