Research Article

Nonuniform Internal Structure of Fibrin Fibers: Protein Density and Bond Density Strongly Decrease with Increasing Diameter

Figure 2

Experimental setup for force measurement. (a) Schematic lateral view of setup. (b) Representative single fibrin fiber stress versus strain plot. The fiber broke at a strain of 225%. The modulus corresponds to the slope of this plot. We used the initial slope, before strain hardening at about 100% strain. (c) Fluorescence images of a fiber being stretched and broken. The large dark object is the AFM cantilever and the AFM tip is marked by an asterisk. The fiber in (c) broke at a strain of 200%. Figures 2(a) and 2(c) are adopted from [18].
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