Potential Applications of Venom Peptides as Anti-Thrombotic Agents for Management of Arterial and Deep-Vein Thrombosis

摘要

Background: Thrombus is composed of two main substances i.e. red blood cells and aggregated platelets which make a web of inter-connected fibrin proteins. During injury it prevents bleeding, so it is very useful but it can be very dangerous if it is produced in healthy blood vessels and block the blood flow through it. Mural thrombi attaches with the blood vessels but in most cases do not block it completely. Venoms are an incredible source of peptides having amazing bio-activities with varying number of amino acid residues. Anticoagulant venom peptides however inhibit the enzyme taking part in coagulation like factor Xa and thrombin. The anticoagulant potential of venom peptides have also been reported by the degradation of the fibrin or fibrinogen related to serine or metalloproteases. Designing and development of numerous therapeutic agents or lead molecules mostly for cardiovascular diseases have been motivated from toxins/proteins from snake venoms. For example, disintegrins, a large family of platelet aggregation inhibitors found in viperid and crotalid snake venoms were the basis for designing of platelet aggregation inhibitors such as eptifibatide and tirofiban.