Simultaneous static and dynamic light scattering approach to the characterization of the different fibrin gel structures occurring by changing chloride concentration

The structure of fibrin fibers has been investigated by simultaneous elastic and dynamic light scattering measurements. This approach allows the recovery of reliable structural parameters of the fibrin fibers while checking for the reliability of the necessarily ab initio assumptions on some nonexperimentally accessible parameters. The number of protofibrils per fiber section, N, related to the fiber diameter, and the gel mass fractal dimension D, are obtained. Since the fiber size is largely controlled by ions in the gelling solution, a detailed characterization of the fiber structure formed by changing Cl- concentration is given. While N values decrease from 6000 to 1.5 protofibrils per fiber section, going from 0 to 300 mM in CCl-, D-m increases from 1 to 1.8. This means that the overall gel structure is affected by Cl-, being the fiber size decreased and branch points per unit volume increased. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.