Fig. 1

NETs are abundant in CVST thrombi. a A schematic drawing of thrombi and blood samples during stent retriever thrombectomy. b–g Thrombi sections obtained from CVST patients were stained with antibodies against CD66b, NE and citH3. Immunohistochemical staining showed that the granulocytes in thrombi were neutrophils stained with NE, and the presence of NETs in CVST thrombi was confirmed by the high expression of citH3. h–j Isotype control staining of CD66b, NE, and citH3 signal in thrombi samples from CVST patients. k The Thrombi sections were stained with CD66b (red), citH3 (pink), NE (green) and DAPI (blue) and analyzed by confocal microscopy. l Two equal parts of fresh patient thrombi were subjected to ex vivo lysis by tPA (1 mg/ml), DNase I (100 U/ml), or a combination of the two for 120 min. The combination of DNase I and tPA markedly promoted ex vivo lysis compared to tPA or DNase I alone, reducing the thrombi weight up to 34.5% at 120 min. Statistics: Repeated measures analysis of variance. The inset scale bars in b-d and h–k are 20 μm and e–g are 40 μm. ***P < 0.001