Enhanced prothrombin and intrinsic factor X activation on blood platelets from diabetic patients

The present work was conducted to bring information about the enhanced procoagulant activity of blood platelets in diabetes mellitus, as compared to normal control platelets. The inquiry was performed on platelets from either human patients or hamsters with streptozotocin-induced diabetes. The experiments comprised functional assays of factor Xa and thrombin generation in the presence of normal or diabetic platelets, using saturating amounts of coagulation factors. The prothrombinasic and tenasic complexes activation was measured by using discontinuous amidolytic tests with chromogenic substrates (S-2238 for FXa and S-2222 for thrombin). The results showed that, in contrast to the low prothrombin and factor X converting activity of normal platelets, the thrombin and FXa generation on diabetic platelets was increased by 3-7 times for either humans or hamsters. These findings may be relevant for the pathogenesis of thrombotic complications known to occur in diabetes mellitus.