About 3 million people in the U.S. live with irritable bowel disease (IBD), and its prevalence is rising. Unfortunately, there isn’t a cure for the condition at the moment. Many individuals with IBD develop clots in their blood and these can result in strokes and heart attacks. Now a new study has discovered possible reasons why these clots are common and suggests a possible way to address this problem while also reducing inflammation.
The team, whose study author is Rebecca Mellema, explains that platelets in IBD patients are hyper-primed to clot at the smallest provocation. This is because the inbuilt mechanism intended to keep platelet clumping minimal in normal people isn’t present or is weak in IBD patients.
According to the research team, a protein referred to as layilin isn’t as abundant in IBD patients when compared to the rest of the population. Layilin is constantly monitoring blood vessels and once it detects damage, it alerts platelets to clump and form clots. During experiments on mice, the team deleted the gene responsible for layilin and found that the platelets in the blood of those mice became stickier than is normal. Consequently, clots formed even when this wasn’t necessary.
When the team analyzed the platelets found in IBD patients, they found about 60% of the expected levels of layilin. This explained why clots easily formed in these individuals.
The researchers point out that the good news in all this is that a number of drugs currently undergoing clinical testing for unrelated conditions target the Rac1 molecule responsible for giving the order for clots to form. The team suggests that those drugs under trial to inhibit Rac1 could turn out to be powerful treatments for people with IBD.
During in vitro tests of these inhibitors in a lab, clotting reduced in human cells. Tests conducted on mice also revealed that the inhibitors tamped down the magnitude of damage to gut tissues in the mice.
The researchers believe that by regulating Rac1 activity, patient may not only benefit by lowering stroke and heart attack risks but also see improvements in the symptoms they live with arising from the inflammation elevated by blocked blood vessels within the gut.
Rac1 inhibitors are also promising because they don’t appear to impact healthy platelet cells. Tests show they prevent unnecessary clotting but leave platelets with the ability to clot when it is warranted. This addresses concerns about the likelihood of overbleeding when an injury occurs.
The Utah University research therefore offers hope that meaningful treatments for IBD can be developed using the research findings. With many firms like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) engaged in efforts to develop treatments indicated for inflammation, there is hope that patients could soon have therapeutics that deliver meaningful clinical outcomes.
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