Strength and deformability of fibrin clots: Biomechanics, thermodynamics, and mechanisms of rupture.

ABSTRACT: Fibrin is the major determinant of the mechanical stability and integrity of blood clots and thrombi. To explore the rupture of blood clots, emulating thrombus breakage, we stretched fibrin gels with single-edge cracks of varying size. Ultrastructural alterations of the fibrin network correlated with three regimes of stress vs. strain profiles: the weakly non-linear regime due to alignment of fibrin fibers; linear regime owing to further alignment and stretching of fibers; and the rupture regime for large deformations reaching the critical strain and stress, at which irreversible breakage of fibers ahead of the crack tip occurs. To interpret the stress-strain curves, we developed a new Fluctuating Spring model, which maps the fibrin alignment at the characteristic strain, network stretchin

SUBMITTER: Tutwiler V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8483248 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature