Antithrombotic and anticoagulant effects of wild type and Gla-domain mutated human activated protein C in rats

The antithrombotic and anticoagulant effects of recombinant wild type (WT) and mutated human activated protein C (hAPC) were investigated using a rat model of arterial thrombosis. Recent in vitro studies using human plasma have shown enhanced anticoagulant effects of hAPC by mutagenesis of either loop 148 in the serine protease domain or of the Gla domain. The Gla-domain mutant QGNSEDY-hAPC (= H10Q/S11G/S12N/D23S/Q32E/N33D/H44Y) was found to be particularly active as an anticoagulant. We now combined the two mutations to create the variant QGNSEDY-hAPC:B148 and investigated the in vivo effects of this variant as well as of QGNSEDY-hAPC and WT hAPC using a rat model of arterial thrombosis. In vitro clotting experiments using rat plasma demonstrated WT hAPC to be inefficient, whereas both mutant hAPC variants yielded distinct dose dependent anticoagulant effects. In the arterial injury model, a segment of the left common carotid artery was opened longitudinally. An endarterectomy was performed and the arteriotomy was closed, whereafter the vessel was reperfused and the patency rate determined after 31 min. Three treatment groups each containing 10 rats and a control group of 20 animals were in a blind random fashion given intravenous bolus injections of 0.8 mg/kg WT or mutant hAPC or vehicle only. The ex vivo clotting times of plasma drawn 3 min after the injections, as compared to baseline clotting times, were approximately doubled by QGNSEDY-hAPC and tripled by QGNSEDY-hAPC:B148 infusions, while WT APC had little effect. Compared to the control group, none of the hAPC preparations had significant antithrombotic effect or increased arteriotomy bleeding.