Effect of wall shear rate on tether frequency, lifetime, and growth rate.

Washed platelets were perfused through VWF-coated (100 μg/mL) microcapillary tubes at either 150 s⁻¹, 600 s⁻¹, 1800 s⁻¹, 5000 s⁻¹, or 10 000 s⁻¹. Translocating platelets from 10 random fields were video-recorded for analysis of tether frequency (A), lifetime (B), or growth rate (C) as described in “Materials and methods.” These results are from 3 independent experiments ( P < .1;P < .05; P < .001).