TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rack, Kathrin
AU  - Huck, Volker
AU  - Hoore, Masoud
AU  - Fedosov, Dmitry A.
AU  - Schneider, Stefan W.
AU  - Gompper, Gerhard
TI  - Margination and stretching of von Willebrand factor in the blood stream enable adhesion
JO  - Scientific reports
VL  - 7
IS  - 1
SN  - 2045-2322
CY  - London
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
M1  - FZJ-2017-07399
SP  - 14278
PY  - 2017
AB  - The protein von Willebrand factor (VWF) is essential in primary hemostasis, as it mediates platelet adhesion to vessel walls. VWF retains its compact (globule-like) shape in equilibrium due to internal molecular associations, but is able to stretch when a high enough shear stress is applied. Even though the shear-flow sensitivity of VWF conformation is well accepted, the behavior of VWF under realistic blood flow conditions remains poorly understood. We perform mesoscopic numerical simulations together with microfluidic experiments in order to characterize VWF behavior in blood flow for a wide range of flow-rate and hematocrit conditions. In particular, our results demonstrate that the compact shape of VWF is important for its migration (or margination) toward vessel walls and that VWF stretches primarily in a near-wall region in blood flow making its adhesion possible. Our results show that VWF is a highly optimized protein in terms of its size and internal associations which are necessary to achieve its vital function. A better understanding of the relevant mechanisms for VWF behavior in microcirculation provides a further step toward the elucidation of the role of mutations in various VWF-related diseases.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:29079767
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000413907000101
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-14346-4
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/838893
ER  -