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Active tissue factor in blood?

Nature Medicine volume 10, pages 1155–1156 (2004)Cite this article

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We titrated tissue factor into fresh nonanticoagulated blood from healthy individuals in the presence of the corn trypsin inhibitor (CTI). CTI suppresses the contact pathway initiation of coagulation by inhibiting factor XIIa4. In the absence of exogenous tissue factor, CTI-blood kept at 37 °C with mixing does not clot for >1,200 s (Fig. 1). The addition of as little as 20 fM of tissue factor to blood treated with CTI resulted in clot formation in 1,000 s. Titrations of tissue factor resulted in shortening of the blood clotting time in a tissue factor concentration–dependent manner. The coagulation response observed at a concentration of tissue factor as low as 20 fM leads to the conclusion that this concentration of functional tissue factor must be well beyond that present in blood from healthy individuals. Over the past 9 years, we have performed >300 tissue factor–initiated whole blood clotting experiments using many donors, multiple phlebotomists and different CTI and tissue factor preparations. In virtually all of these experiments, the clotting time in the absence of added tissue factor was 20 min or greater (extending up to 40 min)4,5.

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Figure 1: Titration of relipidated tissue factor in contact pathway–inhibited whole blood.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry, University of Vermont, Given Building, 89 Beaumont Avenue, Burlington, 05405-0068, Vermont, USA

    Saulius Butenas & Kenneth G Mann

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  1. Saulius Butenas
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  2. Kenneth G Mann
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Butenas, S., Mann, K. Active tissue factor in blood?. Nat Med 10, 1155–1156 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm1104-1155b

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