Time study of TM. Continuous uniaxial cyclic strain increases the antithrombotic TM. (A) Confocal images of HUVECs unstretched, stretched for 6 hours at 10%, stretched for 24 hours at 10%, and interrupted stretch at 10%, all membranes used were flat. DAPI in blue, F-actin in red, and TM in magenta. Objective, original magnification ×40; scale bar 20 μm. The arrow represents the direction of the uniaxial cyclic stretch. Z-stack sum projection. (B) Frequency distribution of TM expression (intensity of fluorescence I [AU]) for 1 representative experiment. Frequency distribution at the top: unstretched (light blue), stretched for 6 hours at 10% (magenta), and stretched for 24 hours at 10% (orange). Frequency distribution at the bottom: unstretched (light blue), stretched for 24 hours at 10% (orange), and interrupted stretch at 10% (yellow). (C) Relative TM protein expression fold change (bar graph) and interquartile range (dots graph). Mean ± standard deviation (SD) values are shown for the following conditions: unstretched, N = 4 independent experiments; stretched for 6 hours at 10%, N = 4 independent experiments; stretched for 24 hours at 10%, N = 5 independent experiments; and interrupted 10% stretch, N = 4 independent experiments. n = 13 200 cells; ∗∗∗∗P < .0001. Every black dot represents 1 independent experiment. AU, arbitrary unit.