Neutrophil augmentation of platelet aggregation in linear shear flow

The tendency of platelets and neutrophils (PMN) to aggregate in flow is of particular importance in thrombosis, myocardial infarction, and myocardial ischemia. The kinetics of heterotypic aggregation were solved by a Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm (Laurenzi and Diamond, 1999) to obtain the temporal distribution of aggregate sizes and compositions. At a shear rate of 335 s^-1 the half-lives of fully activated homotypically aggregating platelet and neutrophil singlets at plasma concentrations were 8.5 and 2.4 seconds respectively. However, for heterotypic aggregation, the half-lives for platelets and neutrophils decreased to 2.0 and 0.11 seconds respectively, demonstrating and quantifying the effect of flowing neutrophils on platelet capture during aggregation in flow