A. Mehta
Vellore Institute of Technology,
India
Keywords: anticoagulant, bioactive peptide, porphyra, FactorXII
Summary:
Development of safe anticoagulant- a bioactive peptide from Porphyra yezoensis Alka Mehta Department of Integrative Biology, School of Bioscience and Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India Email: alkamehta@vit.ac.in Worldwide 30% mortality is due to cardio vascular diseases in which the thrombotic events caused by blood coagulation plays major role. Patients with Cardiovascular disease, Pulmonary embolism, Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) are kept on anticoagulants for short or long term. These patients are like walking on the rope keeping balance between coagulation and bleeding. They are always at risk of external or internal bleeding and require regular INR monitoring. Therefore, therapeutics which control blood coagulation but does not disturb haemostasis is desirable. VITPOR-AI is a novel peptide isolated from protein hydrolysate of Porphyra yezoensis targets Factor XIIa in the intrinsic pathway of blood coagulation. The blood coagulation assays like aPTT, PT and TT were performed on blood plasma and whole blood in presence of the peptide showed prolongation of clotting time from normal 32 to 320 seconds by aPTT assay. At the same time no change in Prothrombin and Thrombin time was observed. These observations suggest that peptide is inhibiting the intrinsic pathway of blood coagulation with least effect on haemostasis. Animal studies showed that this peptide did not prolong the bleeding time in mice at an effective dosage but showed aPTT prolongation in ex-vivo assay. The peptide inhibits coagulation by binding to FXII which is the first coagulation factor in intrinsic pathway. There is enough evidence that FXII has minor or no role in hemostasis but involved in thrombus formation. Hence, targeting FXII will reduce the thrombus formation but will not cause excessive bleeding which is the common problem with present day anticoagulants like heparin, warfarin etc.