EVALUATING THE USE OF TURBIDIMETRY FOR STUDYING FIBRIN STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES

Abstract

A fibrin fiber mesh forms the structural backbone of blood clots. Many pathological conditions result in fibrin gels with altered structural properties, so there is interest in developing rapid and accurate ways to characterize fibrin features. One method of determining the diameter and mass-length ratio of fibers is turbidimetry, which uses light scattering theory for randomly oriented, thin, cylindrical rods to estimate fibrin fiber structural properties from scattering data. There are several different approaches that use turbidimetry to solve for these parameters, each of which has different simplifications and assumptions of full light scattering theory. Although these different approaches are all commonly utilized, the validity of their approximations has not been investigated and the accuracy of the fitting parameters has not been tested against experimental data under a range of physiologically relevant conditions. Therefore, this research will evaluate the accuracy of the commonly utilized turbidimetric approaches by theoretically comparing them to full light scattering theory, and by comparing the acquired diameter values to those obtained experimentally using SEM and super-resolution imaging. The summation of this work will provide a framework for utilizing turbidimetry to study fibrin and pave a path for utilizing turbidimetry in a clinical setting.