Philadelphia, PA -- For the first time ever, using “laser tweezers,” the mechanical properties of an individual fiber in a blood clot have been determined by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Their work, led by John W. Weisel, PhD, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at Penn, and published in this week’s early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides a basis for understanding how the elasticity of the whole clot arises.Clots are a three-dimensional network of fibrin fibers, stabilized by another protein called factor XIIIa.(Click on thumbnail to view full-size image). A blood clot needs to have the right degree of stiffness and plasticity to stem the flow of blood when tissue is damaged, yet be digestible enough by enzymes in the blood so that it does not block blood-flow and cause heart attacks and strokes.
