Transcripts
DR. BRANDT:
This slide depicts what happens. Normally, we have endothelal cells that make up the blood vessel walls, such as glomerular blood vessels.
Normally endothelial cells have a negative charge and there is a positive charge on the platelets (the little stars here have a positive charge. These opposing charges keep the platelets from interacting with the blood vessel walls and causing clots when they shouldn't.
With HUS, you start to have damage to the epithelial cells, including a loss of the negative charge. Swelling of the cells narrows the vessel lumen, and we start to see interactions of platelets and endothelial cells, in part because we've lost some of our negative charge and some other important factors.
Then, the platelets start to clump up, causing further narrowing of the blood vessel and further blockage of flow.
