ABSTRACT
Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a pathologic state that follows systemic injury and other diseases. Often a complication of sepsis or trauma, DIC causes coagulopathy associated with paradoxical thrombosis and hemorrhage. DIC upregulates the thrombotic pathways while simultaneously downregulating the fibrinolytic pathways that cause excessive fibrin deposition, microcirculatory thrombosis, multiorgan dysfunction, and consumptive coagulopathy with excessive bleeding. Given these opposing disease phenotypes, DIC management is challenging and includes treating the underlying disease and managing the coagulopathy. Currently, no therapies are approved for DIC. We have developed clot-targeted therapeutics that inhibit clot polymerization and activate clot fibrinolysis to manage DIC. We hypothesize that delivering both an anticoagulant and a fibrinolytic agent directly to clots will inhibit active clot polymerization while also breaking up pre-existing clots; therefore, reversing consumptive coagulopathy and restoring hemostatic balance. To test this hypothesis, we single- and dual-loaded fibrin-specific nanogels (FSNs) with antithrombinIII (ATIII) and/or tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and evaluated their clot preventing and clot lysing abilities in vitro and in a rodent model of DIC. In vivo, single-loaded ATIII-FSNs decreased fibrin deposits in DIC organs and reduced blood loss when DIC rodents were injured. We also observed that the addition of tPA in dual-loaded ATIII-tPA-FSNs intensified the antithrombotic and fibrinolytic mechanisms, which proved advantageous for clot lysis and restoring platelet counts. However, the addition of tPA may have hindered wound healing capabilities when an injury was introduced. Our data supports the benefits of delivering both anticoagulants and fibrinolytic agents directly to clots to reduce the fibrin load and restore hemostatic balance in DIC.
