Thrombus Profiling Assay: A Microfluidics-Based Platform for Comprehensively Characterizing Biomechanical Thrombogenesis

Thrombosis is a pathological condition describing the abnormal accumulation of platelets and clotting factors in a blood vessel. While many works focused on platelet activation by soluble agonists as an underlying mechanism of thrombosis, it has often been overlooked that blood flow also facilitates thrombus formation. Especially, in the arteries, thrombosis is generally associated with arterial stenosis, which elevates the shear stress in the blood flow and facilitates the process of thrombogenesis, a phenomenon termed biomechanical thrombogenesis. For a long time, no bioassay was available to provide all-around and detailed insights into the process of biomechanical thrombogenesis. To address this, a thrombus profiling assay was developed by combining microfluidics with multi-color fluorescence imaging, which allows comprehensive characterization of biomechanical thrombogenesis with seven readouts covering the size and composition of the thrombus as well as platelet activation level. This thrombus profiling assay can be used to evaluate the prothrombotic tendency in humans and the efficacy of anti-thrombotic agents, and it is also useful for further understanding the mechanisms underlying arterial thrombosis.