Factor Xa: Fights Atherosclerosis

A new study by a team led by researchers at the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU); the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Kyosawa Hospital in Tokyo opens up an intriguing avenue for alleviating atherosclerosis, which may give hundreds of A bright future for millions of patients with this often fatal disease

Watch the video on YouTube: https:// is a chronic disease and one of the leading causes of death worldwide

For some time now, there has been increasing evidence that direct oral factor Xa inhibitors play an important role in the attenuation of atherosclerosis by inhibiting protease-activated receptor 2 (which we call PAR2)

The team's new study shows that administering a sufficient dose of rivaroxaban (RIV) inhibits the activity of factor Xa and effectively reduces areas of atherosclerosis in mice

In the present study, we focused on the detailed mechanisms by which RIV attenuates atherosclerotic progression, thereby contributing to the stabilization of advanced atherosclerotic lesions in mice

Several previous preclinical studies have clearly demonstrated that RIV can attenuate the progression of atherosclerotic lesions and promote plaque stability in mice, but the specific mechanism of its negative regulation of atherosclerotic lesion progression and plaque instability remains unclear.

Observations made in these previous studies led the team to hypothesize that Xa-mediated activation of PAR2 plays a key role in the progression of atherosclerosis, in part by downregulating autophagy mechanisms

Although previous studies support the anti-atherosclerotic effect of RIV, the results are widely divergent