TEG was used to study the viscoelastic properties of the participants' blood, before and after addition of LPS. WB TEG was performed on day of collection (after 10 min incubation time with LPS—final exposure concentration 0.2 ng l−1 and PPP was stored in 500 µl aliquots in a −70°C freezer. The thawed citrated PPP (with and without LPS—where LPS was added to PPP at a final exposure concentration of 0.2 ng l−1. The incubation time of LPS and PPP was 10 min, as with WB. Standard TEG procedures were followed with addition of CaCl2 to activate the coagulation process as previously described . TEG was also performed on 5 PPP samples, 30 s after adding O111:B4 LPS or O26:B6 LPS.