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Signage of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Perelman School of Medicine.
Credit: Isabella Crawford Eng , Devansh Raniwala
Researchers at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Perelman School of Medicine discovered that red blood cells play a critical role in the contraction of blood clots in the body.
The study — which was published in Blood Advances — was co-authored by Penn scholars investigating how red blood cells contribute to the blood clot contraction and stabilization. The findings marked a shift in how red blood cells have been researched, as past literature has overlooked their role in targeting blood clots.
In an interview with Penn Today, professor of Cell and Developmental Biology John Weisel explained that researchers previously attributed clot contraction solely to platelets, which manipulate the fibrin protein to shrink clots and stabilize them.
“Red blood cells were thought to be passive bystanders,” Weisel told Penn Today. “We thought they were just helping the clot to make a better seal.”
Upon discovering that blood clots were able to stabilize without the presence of platelets, Prashant Purohit, a professor in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, developed a mathematical model that identified “osmotic depletion” as being the primary driver of clot contraction in the absence of platelet activity. This model was then confirmed through a series of experiments by first author and Medical School researcher Alina Peshkova.
In the study, red blood cell-induced clot shrinkage was linked to reinforced blood clot contraction, especially in circumstances such as thrombocytopenia — a condition characterized by an abnormally low number of platelets in the blood.
Rustem Litvinov, a senior researcher at Perelman School of Medicine, told Penn Today that the finding “reshapes how we understand one of the body’s most vital processes,” and has promising implications for the research and treatment of conditions that influence platelet function.
“It also opens the door to new strategies for studying and potentially treating clotting disorders that cause either excessive bleeding or dangerous clots, like those seen in strokes,” Litvinov continued.
“Ultimately, our model is going to be helpful in understanding, preventing, and treating diseases related to clotting inside the bloodstream,” Purohit said.
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