Prevent the formation of a blood clot
Nanoparticles will help to measure the risk of thrombosis
Otherwise, the appearance of a blood clot could have been prevented and saved a person – say, from a stroke.
The formation of a blood clot as a result of blood clotting is a complex biochemical process, at the last stage of which the enzyme thrombin converts the protein fibrinogen into fibrin, forming an insoluble dense clot in a blood vessel. Normally, this mechanism protects us from blood loss, but sometimes a blood clot can appear where it is not necessary, blocking large and small vessels. Scientists have been trying for a long time to find a way to predict the occurrence of blood clots, to detect this process in the early stages, but so far it has not been possible: usually you can see only by-products of the destruction of fibrin fibers. That is, therapy is possible only after the fact – after the appearance of the final insoluble protein.
However, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) managed to create a method for early diagnosis of a blood clot: iron oxide nanoparticles coated with a protein that can interact with thrombin are injected into the blood. Thrombin breaks down this protein into specific elements, which can then be easily detected in urine.
Animal experiments have shown that the amount of cleaved signaling protein in urine is directly proportional to the probability of thrombosis in the lung vessels in mice. These fragments themselves can be recognized with the help of specific antibodies, which simplifies the application of this method in clinical practice.
Figure from the article in ACS Nano – VMIn fact, the method was developed for the early diagnosis of one of the types of cancer, but then its authors came up with the idea to try it to measure the level of thrombin.
It is unlikely to be possible to determine the place of the future blood clot in this way, but you can find out if, in principle, blood clots threaten a person, and take measures so that they do not appear anywhere.
The simplicity of the test allows us to hope that it will indeed soon enter into everyday medical practice; in any case, the authors of the work are already counting on a certain profit from the diagnostic method they created.
The results of the study are published in the journal ACS Nano (Lin et al., Nanoparticles That Sense Thrombin Activity As Synthetic Urinary Biomarkers of Thrombosis).
Prepared based on the materials of MIT News: Finding blood cloths before they wreak havoc.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.10.2013