Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0004153 (atherosclerosis)
 77,401 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

From injury through healing, thrombin has several important functions in blood clotting, subsequent clot lysis, and tissue repair. These include edema, inflammation, cell recruitment, cellular releases, transformations, mitogenesis, and angiogenesis. Thrombin also participates in disease states, such as venous thrombosis, coronary thrombosis, stroke, and pulmonary emboli, among others and is implicated in atherosclerosis, the growth and metastasis of certain cancers, Alzheimer's disease, and perhaps other conditions. Thrombin must be continually generated to sustain normal and pathogenic processes. This is because of a variety of consumptive mechanisms. Unlike other activated factors in thrombotic and fibrinolytic pathways, and because thrombin promotes its own generation (feedback and cellular activation), thrombin is a primary target for therapeutics. Besides recombinant hirudins, Argatroban (Novastan) and Bivalirudin (Hirulog) are promising thrombin-directed inhibitors for antithrombotic intervention.
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PMID:Thrombin and antithrombotics. 957 30

Atherosclerosis is a leading cause of death globally. Targeted imaging and therapeutics are desirable for the detection and treatment of the disease. In this study, we developed trifunctional Simian virus 40 (SV40)-based nanoparticles for in vivo targeting and imaging of atherosclerotic plaques. These novel trifunctional SV40-based nanoparticles encapsulate near-infrared quantum dots and bear a targeting element and a drug component. Using trifunctional SV40-based nanoparticles, we were able to noninvasively fluorescently image atherosclerotic plaques in live intact ApoE(-/-) mice. Near-infrared quantum dots encapsulated in the SV40 virus-like particles showed prominent optical properties for in vivo imaging. When different targeting peptides for vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, macrophages, and fibrin were used, early, developmental, and late stages of atherosclerosis could be targeted and imaged in live intact ApoE(-/-) mice, respectively. Targeted SV40 virus-like particles also delivered an increased concentration of the anticoagulant drug Hirulog to atherosclerosis plaques. Our study provides novel SV40-based nanoparticles with multivalency and multifunctionality suitable for in vivo imaging, molecular targeting, and drug delivery in atherosclerosis.
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PMID:In Vivo Targeting and Imaging of Atherosclerosis Using Multifunctional Virus-Like Particles of Simian Virus 40. 2762 63