I. I. Patalakh¹, O. V. Revka¹, O. B. Kuchmenko², O. O. Matova², T. F. Drobotko², T. V. Grinenko¹

¹Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv;
e-mail: sedrickedel@gmail.com
²National Scientific Center “Strazhesko Institute of Cardiology” NAMS of Ukraine, Kyiv

Hemostatic balance in blood is affected by numerous factors, including coagulation and fibrinolytic proteins, the wide spectrum of their inhibitors, and blood cells. Since platelets can participate in contradictory processes, they significantly complicate the whole picture. Therefore, nowadays the development of global assays of hemostasis, which can reflect the physiological process of hemostasis and can be used for point-of-care diagnosis of thrombosis, is crucial. This paper outlines a new approach we used to analyze the capabilities of clot waveform analysis tools to distinguish the response of platelet-rich plasma from healthy donors and patients with arterial hypertension caused by stimulation of coagulation and lysis (with exogenous thrombin and recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator, respectively). In donor plasma, when the clot degradation was accompanied by 40 IU/ml of recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator, platelets potentiated fibrinolysis more than coagulation, which ultimately shifts the overall balance to a profibrinolytic state. At the same time, for patients with hypertension, platelets, embedded in clot obtained from platelet-rich plasma, showed a weaker ability to stimulate fibrinolysis. The obtained data gives the evidence that platelets can act not only as procoagulants but also as profibrinolytics. By simultaneously amplifying coagulation and fibrinolysis, making their rates comparable, platelets would control plasma procoagulant activity, thereby regulating local hemostatic balance, the size and lifetime of the clot. Moreover, clot waveform analysis may be used to distinguish the effects of platelet-rich plasma on clotting or lysis of fibrin clots in healthy donors and patients with essential hypertension.

Keywords: arterial hypertension, clot waveform analysis, clotting, lysis, platelets