Evaluation of antithrombotic effect: Importance of testing components and methodologies

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Research
• Hemostasis and Thrombosis
• Dietary Component Analysis

Background:

• Cardiovascular diseases and arterial thrombosis pose significant health challenges.
• Dietary components show promise for prevention, but effective screening methods are lacking.
• Current platelet function and coagulation tests inadequately assess global thrombotic status and ignore key physiological factors like flow and endothelium.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate physiologically relevant techniques for detecting antithrombotic effects of dietary components.
• To compare in vitro thrombosis tests with a gold standard in vivo model.
• To identify a combination of tests that best reflects arterial thrombogenesis.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a helium-neon (He-Ne) laser-induced thrombosis test in murine models as a gold standard for arterial thrombogenesis.
• Compared laser thrombosis test results with shear-induced in vitro platelet function tests (Haemostatometry, Thrombotic Status Analyser, Global Thrombosis Test-GTT).
• Assessed vascular endothelium contribution using in vivo flow-mediated vasodilation (FMV) measurements.

Main Results:

• The laser thrombosis test closely mimics human arterial thrombogenesis.
• Combining Haemostatometry and the Global Thrombosis Test (GTT) with FMV showed the highest correlation with the laser thrombosis test.
• Individual in vitro tests showed limited correlation with the in vivo gold standard.

Conclusions:

• A combination of shear-induced ex vivo thrombosis tests and FMV provides a more comprehensive assessment of thrombotic status.
• The commercially available Global Thrombosis Test (GTT) combined with the FMV test offers a promising approach for evaluating antithrombotic effects of dietary components.
• This combined approach could improve the screening of dietary interventions for cardiovascular disease prevention.