On the Possible Liquid Crystalline Structures in Artificial Thrombi Formed at Arterial Shear Rates: Effects of Disease, Proteins Concentrations, and ABO Blood Groups

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Abstract
All characteristics of blood coagula, such as clotting times, viscosities of coagula, and their morphologies depend on the shear rate at which the clotting process takes place. At arterial shear rates only the red and white thrombi are formed. The apparent viscosity of artificial thrombi, formed in the variable-frequency thromboviscometer (VFTV) at 60 and 180 cycles/min (mean shear rates of 26 and 80 sec−1), was studied in patients and fibrinogen-thrombin systems. Viscosity is always (even multifold) higher in patients suffering from hypertension, renal failure, unsuccessful kidney transplantation, or arteriosclerosis than in normals. In the thrombi, obtained from the fibrinogen-thrombin systems and from patients suffering from haemophilia, there is a sensible dependence of viscosity on the concentration of fibrinogen. In the thrombi of patients, suffering from the myocardial infarction or thyroid diseases, that is not the case and a reverse correlation might be present depending on the ABO blood group. A significant effect must be attributed to the protein ratios, namely the albumin/globulin, albumin/fibrinogen and globulin/fibrinogen ratios. Effect of these ratios on the viscosity of artificial thrombi appears to be greater than that of the actual concentrations of proteins. Nevertheless, the pattern obtained may be reverse (opposite) in the red and in the white thrombi (obtained at 60 and 180 cycles/min, respectively), and may be reverse in the patients of A and O blood groups. It is suggested that the viscosity dependence of the thrombi (of basic shear-thinning or thixotropic rheology) on the ratios of plasma proteins and on the ABO antigens and antibodies indicates a presence of the liquid crystalline structures.