Figure 4.

Adhesion of non‐activated or TRAP‐activated platelets to immobilized recombinant PadA‐F2 region fragments under static conditions. Recombinant PadA protein fragments were immobilized onto microtitre plate wells (10 μg per well), and non‐specific binding sites were blocked with BSA. Gel‐filtered platelets were either non‐activated (a) or activated by addition of TRAP (Thrombin Receptor Activating Peptide; b) and were incubated with the immobilized proteins at 37°C for 45 min (2 × 10⁷ platelets per well). Platelet adherence was determined by phosphatase assay. RGT_AAA, AGD_AAA, NGR_AAA, and so forth indicate the motifs within the various F2 fragments that were alanine‐substituted to AAA. Error bars represent ±SEM from three independent experiments (n = 3). * P < 0.05. In (a), NS = not statistically significant (F2 v F2 RGT_AAA AGD_AAA, P = 0.429; F2 v F2 NGR_AAA RGT_AAA AGD _AAA, P = 0.962)