Defective adhesion of blood platelets to vascular microfibrils in the
Bernard-Soulier syndrome
F Fauvel-Lafeve, V Tabaka, JP Caen and YJ Legrand
Unite 353 Inserm, Hopital Saint Louis, Paris, France.
Bernard-Soulier syndrome (BSS) platelets, which lack the membrane
glycoprotein complex Ib-IX, do not adhere to subendothelium. The adhesion
of platelets from two patients with BSS to subendothelial microfibrils
(MFs) and type I collagen was compared in an in vitro assay adapted to
patients with low platelet count. With both patients, platelet adhesion to
MFs was strongly defective, whereas the adhesion to collagen was normal.
The involvement of GPIb in the MFs-induced platelet adhesion was confirmed
by the inhibitory effect of a MoAb (AN51) to the von Willebrand (vWF)
factor binding domain of GPIb. The adhesion of platelets to MFs thus
requires GPIb-IX and an axis MFs-vWF- GPIb-IX seems therefore to be
prevalent in the reactivity of platelets with subendothelium.
Volume 82,
Issue 7,
pp. 1985-1988,
10/01/1993
Copyright © 1993 by The American Society of Hematology