The lectin‐like domain of thrombomodulin is a drug candidate for both prophylaxis and treatment of liver ischemia and reperfusion injury in mice

Ischemia and reperfusion injury (IRI) can occur in any tissue or organ. With respect to liver transplantation, the liver grafts from donors by definition experience transient ischemia and subsequent blood reflow. IRI is a problem not only in organ transplantation but also in cases of thrombosis or circulatory disorders such as mesenteric ischemia, myocardial, or cerebral infarction. We have reported that recombinant human soluble thrombomodulin (rTM), which is currently used in Japan to treat disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), has a protective effect and suppresses liver IRI in mice. However, rTM may not be fully safe to use in humans because of its inherent anticoagulant activity. In the present study, we used a mouse liver IRI model to explore the possibility that the isolated lectin-like domain of rTM (rTMD1), which has no anticoagulant activity, could be effective as a therapeutic modality for IRI. Our results indicated that rTMD1 could suppress ischemia and reperfusion-induced liver damage in a dose-dependent manner without concern of associated hemorrhage. Surprisingly, rTMD1 suppressed the liver damage even after IR insult had occurred. Taken together, we conclude that rTMD1 may be a candidate drug for prevention of and therapy for human liver IRI without the possible risk of hemorrhage

Comparative studies of irinotecan-loaded polyethylene glycol-modified liposomes prepared using different PEG-modification methods

AbstractRecently, a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-modification method for liposomes prepared using pH-gradient method has been proposed. The differences in the pharmacokinetics and the impact on the antitumor effect were examined; however the impact of PEG-lipid molar weight has not been investigated yet. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of PEG-lipid molar weight against the differences in the pharmacokinetics, the drug-release profile, and the antitumor effect between the proposed PEG-modification method, called the post-modification method, and the conventional PEG-modification method, called the pre-modification method. Various comparative studies were performed using irinotecan as a general model drug. The results showed that PEG-lipid degradation could be markedly inhibited in the post-modification method. Furthermore, prolonged circulation time was observed in the post-modification method. The sustained drug-release was observed in the post-modification method by the results of the drug-releasing test in plasma. Moreover, a higher antitumor effect was observed in the post-modification method. It was also confirmed that the same behaviors were observed in all comparative studies even though the PEG molecular weight was lower.In conclusion, the post-modification method has the potential to be a valuable PEG-modification method that can achieve higher preservation stability of PEG-lipid, prolonged circulation time, and higher antitumor effect with only half the amount of PEG-lipid as compared to the pre-modification method. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that PEG5000-lipid would be more desirable than PEG2000-lipid since it requires much smaller amount of PEG-lipid to demonstrate the same performances