{
  "abstract": "Red blood cells carrying intracellular vacuoles, called pocked cells, are a sensitive marker of splenic function: about 0.5% of cells in healthy people, 20 to 70% after splenectomy. Vacuoles too small to see are common, and visible ones are thought to grow when small ones merge. We tested that idea with a particle model that resolves the cell's membrane, its contents and every vacuole, and with an inventory of the vacuole volume a cell can make. In tube, shear and vascular flows, a cell's vacuoles met within a second, and, allowed to fuse, ten merged into one to five. Meeting is not what limits growth; material is. At the rate measured after splenectomy, all the vacuoles an average cell makes in its 120-day life fuse into one body 0.6 $μ$m across, the size healthy cells carry, but 16 times smaller in volume than the 1.5-$μ$m bodies of patients without a spleen. Taking vacuole size as set at formation, a population model in which vacuoles are made mainly in young cells, and far faster in a small minority that alone makes material for a large one, accounts for the published counts, sizes and age profiles and, on first-hand measurements, favours a splenic clearance that rises several-fold as cells age; letting that minority's vacuoles fuse fits nearly as well. At a model splenic slit, the cell's spare surface decided passage, and a vacuole mattered only when it led. A slit experiment would test whether brief encounters fuse vacuoles.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.22646",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Zhaojie Chai"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jianlu Zheng"
    },
    {
      "name": "He Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ming Dao"
    },
    {
      "name": "George Em Karniadakis"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dhmgjxdxe71vq.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.22646",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "dhmgjxdxe71vq",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22646",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-SA-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.soft"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.bio-ph"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.flu-dyn"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "q-bio.CB"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2737|Erythrocyte Function and Pathophysiology"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7222958680",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.22646",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-20",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dhmgjxdxe71vq.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:34:18Z",
      "native_id": "2610.22646",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22646"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "arxiv:q-bio.CB",
      "subfield": "cell-biology"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.bio-ph",
      "subfield": "biological-medical"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.soft",
      "subfield": "condensed-matter"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:physics.flu-dyn",
      "subfield": "fluid-dynamics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The typical red cell makes too little vacuole material for coalescence to build the large vacuoles of pocked cells",
  "title_text": "The typical red cell makes too little vacuole material for coalescence to build the large vacuoles of pocked cells",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:34:23Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dhmgjxdxe71vq",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}