The data for set 4 came from a study on the effect of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) on fibrin properties [24 (link)]. Twenty-eight patients, with 82/18% female/male ratio at a mean age of 37 ± 13 years, were included in the original study, based on the revised criteria of the American College of Rheumatology for SLE. Informed consent was obtained from the SLE patients and healthy donors under the approval of the Ethical Committee of the Kazan State Medical University (Kazan, Russia; protocol #2 as of 21 February 2017). A subset of all available SEM images from this study was included in the current study. Blood was drawn under aseptic conditions without venous stasis using vacutainers containing 3.8% trisodium citrate (Greiner Bio-One, Kremsmünster, Austria) at 9:1 v/v. For investigations of plasma clots, the blood was centrifuged at room temperature for 15 min at 1500× g to obtain platelet-poor plasma, then 5 min at 10,000× g to obtain platelet-free plasma, which was then aliquoted and stored at −80 °C until further analysis. For control experiments, platelet-free plasma from at least 10 healthy donors was pooled, aliquoted, and stored at −80 °C until use. The frozen samples were thawed at 37 °C for 60 min and used within 2 h.
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