Patent Application: US-92372910-A

Abstract:
adhesion of platelets to blood vessel walls is the first step that promotes arrest of bleeding by interaction of the platelet receptors with various extracellular matrix proteins that become exposed on vascular injury . a flow chamber is provided for use in analyzing or studying platelet function , in whole blood , either as part of a batch process or in real time . in the flow chambers , an inert polydimethylsiloxane surface is plasma - activated and a homobifunctional cross - linker is used to immobilize platelet - binding proteins onto a chamber wall surface . immobilized collagen and fibrinogen may thus be assayed by continuously monitoring the adhesion of adp and ca 2 + activated platelets from a subject , such as a patient having normal or type 2 diabetes . the flow chamber provides a simplified and robust method for the construction flow chambers which enable the kinetic monitoring of platelet adhesion in whole blood .

Description:
reference is made to fig1 a and 1b which illustrates a flow cell 10 having parallel plate flow chamber 20 in accordance with a preferred embodiment . the flow chamber 20 is defined radially by a number peripherally extending polytetrafluoroethylene sidewall 24 , and is sealed at each of its ends by optically transparent glass cover plates 28 , 30 . as shown best in fig1 a , a blood flow inlet 32 and fluid flow outlet 34 extend through opposing sidewalls 24 b , 24 c . a chemically immobilized collagen or fibrinogen bed 40 is adhered to the glass cover plate 30 along an axial central ( a 1 - a 1 ) portion of the flow chamber 20 . as will be described , the parallel plate flow chamber 20 is used for analysis of platelet binding and aggregation to the deposited collagen or fibrinogen bed 40 to assist in the monitoring , diagnosis or treatment of blood or circulatory disorders . in a most preferred use , the flow chamber is used to monitor treatment and / or provide more timely blood test results to patients undergoing treatment with coumadin , warfarin , plavix and / or other forms of blood thinners . the parallel plate flow chamber 20 is constructed to mimic the in vivo conditions that would facilitate kinetic aggregation studies of blood platelets . the chamber 20 is constructed by cutting a 9 . 87 mm × 9 . 87 mm square hole through an 8 . 57 mm - thick block of polytetrafluoroethylene ( ptfe ) block . two parallel 15 mm - thick glass cover slips 28 , 30 are then sealed over the top and bottom surface of the square teflon block as illustrated in fig1 b . the blood flow inlet 32 is formed by drilling an off centre hole through the sidewall 24 to form a 1 . 57 mm diameter borehole . the blood flow outlet 34 is likewise drilled off centre through the opposing sidewall 24 to form a 1 . 57 mm diameter borehole . reference is made to fig2 illustrating the chemical reaction pathway for immobilizing collagen or fibrinogen to form an inlet polydimethylsiloxane ( pdms ) bed 40 or the glass cover slip 30 . optionally , a layer of inert pdms about 0 . 96 μm thick with 1 mm 2 surface is poured in the axial center at the bottom of the parallel plate flow chamber 20 at a selected sampling location selected along the axis a 1 - a 1 , and then plasma activated using a plasma cleaner . preferably , to generate silanol groups on the inert pdms bed 40 ( fig1 b ), plasma oxidation was carried out using a plasma cleaner . pdc - 32g ™ ( harrick plasma , usa ). after plasma oxidation , 0 . 2 μl of 2 % aminopropyltrimethoxysilane ( aptmes ) ( sigma canada ) was added on ˜ 1 mm 2 surface of pdms , in the centre of the flow chamber . after 10 minutes , a 0 . 5 μl portion of 0 . 5 mm disuccinimidyl suberate ( pierce , usa ) solution was added to the aptmes dot in the axial centre of the flow chamber 20 . type 1 fibrinogen form bovine plasma ( sigma ) solution with a final concentration of 5 μm was added after 5 seconds . for the experiments with collagen immobilization , 8 μm of collagen type 1 from rat tail ( bd biosciences ) was used . the reaction was stopped after 15 minutes by adding tris buffer ph 8 . the immobilization chemistry is shown in fig2 . fibrinogen or collagen was fluorescently labelled with fitc and immobilized on pdms as described above . fibrinogen - fitc adsorbed on pdms was used as a control . this was followed by addition of 2 % sds and the samples were incubated for 3 hours . after incubation , pdms surface was washed with pbs and imaged . healthy human subjects ( n = 5 ), ages 25 - 40 years were chosen to participate in the study only if they showed no overt symptoms of disease and were taking no medication . diabetic human subject , ages 25 - 40 ( n = 5 ) on diet therapy alone and achieving stable and satisfactory glycemic control ( fasting glycemia and glycosuria variation & lt ; 15 %; post - prandial glycemia variation & lt ; 25 % and hba1c & lt ; 7 . 5 %) were chosen for inclusion in the study . none of the patients smoked , had history of alcohol abuse or were taking insulin or any drugs known to lower lipids or interfere with the coagulation and antioxidant systems . platelets were isolated in a conventional manner , and were labelled with 60 μm bodipy ® fl n -( 2 - aminoethyl ) maleimide ( molecular probes , canada ). after 30 min incubation , platelets were washed twice with hepes - acd ™ buffer to remove excess dye and were reintroduced into whole blood . the flow cell 10 circuit was constructed including an in - house designed flow chamber 20 as herebefore described . ptfe sterile tubing ( 0 . 031 ″× 0 . 062 ″), a medium reservoir , and a peristaltic pump ( reglo digital ™ ms 4 / 6 , model ism 833 , ismatec ), not shown . the offset configuration of the inlet and outlet in the chamber provided optimum flow characteristics desirable for performing and associated studies to be detailed in a subsequent manuscript . fig3 a illustrates the flow path lines of the sample through the chamber 20 as simulated by the commercial finite volume solver fluent ™. flow conditions in the chamber 20 were laminar with reynolds numbers on the order of 10 based on chamber geometry . the test chamber was open at the top so the flow was that of an open channel . location 1 and 2 depicted in fig3 a represent the spatial regions of interest in this study ; these were located 5 mm and 6 mm respectively from the chamber 20 upstream wall 24 b . fig3 b illustrates the computationally modeled velocity profiles at each location . the profiles show characteristic of the laminar , shearing flow that was desired . conventional flow chambers test platelet adhesion and aggregation by coating fibrinogen / collagen on glass slides . in the present invention , an otherwise inert matrix pdms is plasma activated and used a bifunctional , primary amine - directed crosslinker dss , to immobilize platelet - binding proteins on the pdms bed 40 . due to the hydrophobic nature of pdms , the bed 40 shows high affinity for proteins . in order to show that the adhered proteins ( fibrinogen / collagen ) in the flow cell 10 are covalently linked and not adsorbed by hydrophobic interactions , the pdms surface was treated with sds ( 2 % for 3 h ). as can be seen in fig4 a to d , the protein attached to the pdms - surface via covalent chemistry was not washed away by sds treatment whereas the control - non covalently attached proteins were totally removed by sds . reference is made to fig4 a , 4 b , 4 c and 4 d which illustrate and confirm covalent immobilization of fibrinogen and collagen proteins to pdms . fig4 a is the fluorescence image of the sampling location after fibrinogen or collagen labelled fluorescently with fluorescein isothiocyanate ( fitc ) is covalently cross - linked to pdms . fig4 b is the same fluorescence image except the sampling location is incubated 3 hours in sodium dodecyl sulphate ( sds ) and washed with phosphate buffered saline ( pbs ). in comparison , fig4 c is the fluorescence image of the sampling location after fibrinogen labelled fluorescently with fitc is non - covalently adsorbed onto pdms surface . fig4 d is the same fluorescence image except the sampling location is incubated 3 hours in sds and washed with pbs . fig4 b and 4d by comparison illustrates that fitc - labelled proteins are not washed away by the sds incubation when they are covalently cross - linked to pdms but not when they are non - covalently adsorbed onto pdms surface . in order to assess the suitability of the flow chamber 20 and the immobilization chemistry for platelet adhesion studies , adhesion to collagen and fibrinogen was tested . flow chambers 20 were placed onto an inverted fluorescence microscope ( zeiss axiovert ™ 200m ). whole blood containing fluorescently labelled platelets was perfused over the flow chambers 20 containing either pdms alone or pdms - immobilized bsa or fibrinogen or collagen . the perfusion rate was 2 ml / min , which generates shear equivalent to that of descending aorta (˜ 5 dyne / cm 2 ) [ 9 ]. the platelets were either activated by the injection of ca 2 + ( 1 mm ) or adp ( 20 μm ) at t = 0 . images over the immobilized protein field were captured every 20 s from which the kinetic plots were constructed ( fig6 a to 6d ). the raw image data , at 40 s intervals , is presented in fig5 . fig5 illustrates a comparison of platelet aggregation in normal and type 2 diabetic subjects . whole blood containing fluorescently labelled platelets was passed over pdms alone and pdms with immobilized bsa , fibrinogen ( fib ) or collagen ( coll ) using either 1 mm calcium ( ca 2 + ) or 20 μm adp as activators . the images show time dependent increase in platelet adhesion to fibrinogen and collagen , with very little adhesion to the controls ( pdms and bsa ). the total number of adherent platelets after 200 sec is greater in the case of type 2 diabetic ( t2d ) subjects as compared to normal ( n ) subjects , irrespective of the protein / activator used . all experiments were done at 37 ° c . images were captured in 20 sec intervals by zeiss axiovert ™ 200 microscope with achromat 5 × objective ( carl zeiss ), equipped with a retiga ex cooled monochrome 12 bit camera ( q imaging ) and an xcite series 120 ( exfo , canada ) mercury lamp . image capture and the quantification of the adhered platelets were facilitated by northern eclipse software ( empix , canada ). fig6 a to d illustrate kinetic plots of platelets adhered to immobilized fibrinogen and collagen over time . blood reconstituted with fluorescently labelled platelets from normal and diabetic subjects was perfused through the flow chambers containing immobilized fibrinogen and collagen . graphs 6 a and 6 b show platelets adhered to collagen and fibrinogen , respectively , over time , when calcium was used as an activator . graphs 6 c and 6 d show increasing number of platelets adhered to collagen and fibrinogen respectively , when adp was used as an activator . the number of platelets adhering over time is greater in diabetic subjects ( squares ) as compared to normal subjects ( triangles ). the platelet binding data is extracted from the entire image data set taken at 20 sec intervals . each point represents the mean ± sd from at least t three independent experiments . the solid lines represent the best fit line for the first order treatment of the binding data : y = ae − kt . platelets are very discriminative with respect to binding sites on fibrinogen or collagen . since platelets are able to interact with covalently linked fibrinogen / collagen on the applicant &# 39 ; s flow cell surface , it strongly suggests that covalent attachment chemistry is not altering collagen / fibrinogen structure . with the controls , pdms alone or pdms - immobilized bsa , there were & lt ; 50 platelets attached after 200 s of perfusion ( fig5 ). in contrast , when the whole blood was passed over fibrinogen or collagen coated flow cells there occurs a continuous build up in the adhered platelets over the initial density pattern established in the previous time frames indicating that the interaction was irreversible . at the end of the binding experiments ˜ 10 ml of buffer was pumped through the flow chambers . the number of adhered platelets did not change a further indication of the irreversibility of the interaction with protein matrices covalently attached to pdms surface . it is well established that in type 2 diabetic ( t2d ), the platelets have altered in vitro adhesion and aggregation patterns and are hypersensitive to agonists as compared to the normal platelets . therefore , an important step in the validation process is to determine whether our flow cells were able to discern functional differences between platelets from normal and t2d subjects . to this end , we compared the adhesion kinetics ca 2 + or adp activated platelets from control and t2d subjects onto immobilized collagen and fibrinogen in the flow chambers . a qualitative examination of the raw data ( fig5 ) revealed that platelets from t2d subjects gave rise to more platelet adhesion irrespective of the activator used or the immobilized surface . these observations were elegantly substantiated upon kinetic treatment of the data shown in fig6 a to 6b and tables 1 and 2 . in particular , table 1 shows the total number of normal and type 2 diabetic ( t2d ) platelets ± sd attached to fibrinogen ( fib ) and collagen ( coll ) after 200 sec , with calcium ( ca 2 ) and adp as activators . table 2 shows the first order rate constants were calculated from the kinetic plots of the platelet adhesion data . the t2d platelets have higher rate constants as compared to the normal (* p & lt ; 0 . 05 ). the total number of platelets bound to the protein surfaces are summarized in table 1 . in general , the maximum number of platelets bound at saturation (˜ 200 s ) was larger for platelets from t2d subjects in comparison to those from the normal subjects , under all conditions examined . the largest ratio between t2d to normal of ˜ 1 . 73 was obtained with ca 2 + - activated platelets on a fibrinogen surface . the smallest ratio of ˜ 1 . 31 was obtained with adp - activated platelets on a collagen surface . one observation from the kinetic plots of the data was that when platelets were activated with ca 2 + , with either on the collagen or the fibrinogen surface , there was a 20 s to 40 s lag prior to the initiation of the platelet binding irrespective of the platelet source ( t2d or normal ) ( fig5 ). in contrast , this lag was absent in the adp - activated platelets ( fig5 ). the rate constants extracted from first order kinetic treatment of the data ( table 2 ) revealed that the binding rate constants for platelets from normal subjects were in general independent of the activator used or the protein immobilized since the differences between the rates ( 0 . 014 ± 0 . 002 sec − 1 ) were not statistically significant . however , when the rate constants of the various activator / protein surface combinations from t2d were compared to normal , in all cases the t2d gave rise to 1 . 12 - fold to 1 . 33 - fold larger and statistically significant , platelet - binding rate constants ( 0 . 018 ± 0 . 002 sec − 1 ). although the disclosure describes and illustrates various preferred embodiments , the invention is not so limited . many variations and modifications will now occur to those skilled in the art . for a definition of the invention , reference may be had to the appended claims . the following publications describe various process and apparatus as related to aspects of the invention heretofore described , and the disclosure of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference . j . a . remijn , y . wu , e . h . jening a , m . j . w . jsseldijk , g . v . willigen , p . g . groot , j . j . sixma , a . t . nurden , p . nurden , thrombosis and vascular biology 22 , 686 ( 2002 ). 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