The Effect of Thrombin Concentration on Fibrin Clot Structure Imaged by Multiphoton Microscopy and Quantified by Fractal Analysis

Abstract

Fibrin clots are an important component of chronic cardiovascular thrombosis and are associated with cardiovascular dysfunction, stroke and formation of microthrombi in systemic inflammatory states. During coagulation, thrombin selectively cleaves fibrinogen resulting in the formation of linear fibrin polymers that form by end-to-end and side-to-side association. Here we present a novel assay for real-time imaging of fibrin polymerization using fluorescence laser scanning multiphoton microscopy (MPM) and fractal analysis for quantification of clot structure.