For more than a century, heparin has been the main anticoagulant to prevent the formation or larger harmful clot in the blood vessels or heart. However, a major side effect is an increased risk of excessive bleeding, even from minor injuries such as small cuts to the skin. In ACS Central Science, researchers report the discovery of a snail-derived compound that blocks clot formation while maintaining bleeding control in mouse models.
Blood clots are natural temporary bandages that seal wounds and stop bleeding. These helpful clots – called hemostatic clots – speed healing in injuries such as cuts to the skin. But a harmful type of clot called a thrombus can form inside blood vessels and the heart, blocking blood flow and causing severe pain and tissue damage. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs when these long-term clots form in the legs and do not dissolve as they should. If they break off and travel to other parts of the body, the clots can cause strokes, shortness of breath, and possibly death. Although heparin and other blood thinners help prevent clots, these anticoagulants also interfere with normal clotting (hemostasis) and increase the risk of excessive bleeding. So Mingyi Wu and colleagues sought a safer, natural anticoagulant that only targets clot formation.
After analyzing numerous mollusk compounds, the researchers identified CCG, a new glycosaminoglycan (a type of complex sugar) from the snail Camaena cicatricosa. Although some of the molecular structure of CCG is similar to heparin, the sugar sequence that heparin uses to attach to one of its binding partners is missing from CCG. The researchers hypothesized that these differences could make CCG a safer anticoagulant.
In tests with human plasma, CCG inhibited thrombus formation and had no effect on hemostasis. In mouse models of DVT, injected CCG also reduced the incidence of DVT clots and, unlike heparin, did not increase the risk of bleeding. Further testing revealed that CCG blocks the formation of an enzyme (iFXase) that is active in clot formation but not in hemostasis.
Although more research is needed, these initial results suggest that this snail-derived compound could be developed into a safer anticoagulant compared to heparins, the authors say.
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