Thrombin-initiated platelet activation in vivo is vWF independent during thrombus formation in a laser injury model
J. Clin. Invest. Christophe Dubois, et al. 117:953 doi:10.1172/JCI30537 [Go to this article.]

Figure 3
Platelet accumulation during thrombus formation after vessel wall injury in WT and vWF^–/– mice. Platelets were labeled with anti-mouse CD41 Fab fragments conjugated to Alexa Fluor 647. (A) The median integrated platelet fluorescence (y axis) for 43 thrombi in 4 WT mice and for 39 thrombi in 4 vWF^–/– mice is presented versus time after vessel wall injury. (B) The distribution of the time to reach maximal size for each thrombus in WT mice and in vWF^–/– mice. No significant difference was observed by the Wilcoxon rank sum test. (C) The distribution of the integrated platelet fluorescence for each thrombus in WT and vWF^–/– mice at maximal size. WT thrombi were significantly larger than vWF^–/– thrombi by the Wilcoxon rank sum test (P < 0.001). (D) The quartile distribution of the maximal integrated platelet fluorescence for each thrombus in WT and vWF^–/– mice. Forty-three thrombi in WT mice and 39 thrombi in vWF^–/– mice were ranked, and the percentage of thrombi of each genotype was determined independently in each quartile of the rank order. Black bars, WT mice; white bars, vWF^–/– mice.