Fig. 5.

Cucurbitacins inhibit clot retraction. Human washed platelets pre-treated for 10 minutes with or without increasing concentrations of cucurbitacin B, E or I (0.1–10 µM) or vehicle control were added to aggregometer tubes in the presence of 2 mg/mL fibrinogen and 2 mM CaCl ₂ . Clot retraction was initiated by adding 1 U/mL thrombin and left to proceed for 90 minutes at room temperature. Clot retraction was determined by weighing the clot and data expressed as percentage of vehicle-treated control. Results are mean + standard error of the mean (SEM) for n ≥ 3, * indicates p ≤ 0.05 in comparison to vehicle control, where normalised data shown, statistics were performed prior to normalisation.