Fibrinogen, Fibrinogen Degradation Products and Erythrocyte Flexibility

Summary

An investigation has been made of the effect of fibrinogen concentration and fibrinogen degradation products on the flexibility of erythrocytes. The measurements were made using the blood of 2 donors, one representative of the normal population, the other representative of the 1. 5% of the normal population whose flexibility is more than three standard deviations from the total population mean. A linear relationship between erythrocyte flexibility and fibrinogen concentration was found in both cases. However, while the normal control had only a slow packing rate at zero fibrinogen concentration, the fast-packing cells retained a high degree of flexibility. Digestion of fibrinogen for sufficient time to form the larger degradation fragments X and Y indicated that they have similar effects to the native fibrinogen. The smaller fragments D and E, do not affect the flexibility nor do they inhibit or modify the effect of fibrinogen.

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