Fig. 2.

VWF relaxation dynamics. a Successive 20 frames per second (fps) images of VWF extension in forward (+) and backward (−) flow at 1280 dyn cm⁻² and relaxation in absence of flow in buffer with 60% w/w sucrose and 150 mM NaCl. b Time course of VWF extension normalized to its initial value L ₀ at 1280 dyn cm⁻² during relaxation from forward (solid lines) or backward (dashed lines) flows for 94 VWF concatemers (Supplementary Fig. 1c, d). c Average VWF relaxation dynamics (solid lines) in b for four L ₀ bins with fits (dashed lines) from the equation shown in d. d, e Fits to the equations with 95% confidence intervals shown for VWF relaxation (Supplementary Fig. 1e, f). Points and error bars show mean and SD for all 94 concatemers relaxed from flow in both directions. The value of 0.96 for a suggests that we can account for 96% of the relaxation with a single exponential decay. There may be another component with a slower relaxation, but we could not measure it owing to the photobleaching that would occur during the long exposure required for its measurement