Summary
Apixaban is an oral, direct and highly selective factor Xa (FXa) inhibitor in late-stage
clinical development. This study evaluated the in vitro effect of apixaban on human
platelet aggregation induced by thrombin derived via the extrinsic pathway. Direct
inhibitors of FXa (rivaroxaban), FVIIa (BMS-593214), thrombin (dabigatran, argatroban)
and FXIa (BMS-262084) were included for comparison. Citrated human plateletsrich plasma
(PRP) was treated with 50 μg/ml corn trypsin inhibitor (to block the contact factor
pathway) and 3 mM H-Gly-Pro-Arg- Pro-OH-AcOH (to prevent fibrin polymerisation). Human
tissue factor (TF) (Innovin®; dilution 1:1,000 to 1:1,500) plus 7.5 mM CaCl2 was added to PRP pre-incubated with vehicle or increasing concentrations of inhibitors.
The TF-induced platelet aggregation was measured by optical aggregometry. TF produced
85 ± 3% aggregation of human platelets in the vehicle-treated group (n=10). Apixaban
and other factor inhibitors, except the FXIa inhibitor, inhibited TF-induced platelet
aggregation with IC50 (nM) values as follows: 4 ± 1 (apixaban), 8 ± 2 (rivaroxaban), 13 ± 1 (BMS-593214),
46 ± 1 (dabigatran) and 79 ± 1 (argatroban). BMS-262084 (IC50 = 2.8 nM vs. human FXIa) had no effect on TF-induced platelet aggregation at 10 μM.
These inhibitors at 10 μM had no effect on platelet aggregation induced by ADP and
collagen, as expected from their mechanism of action. This study demonstrates that
inhibition of thrombin generation by blocking upstream proteases (FVIIa and FXa) in
the blood coagulation cascade is as effective as direct thrombin inhibition in preventing
TF-induced platelet aggregation. Under these experimental conditions, a FXIa inhibitor
did not prevent TF-induced platelet aggregation.
Keywords Apixaban - dabigatran - direct factor Xa inhibitor - platelet aggregation - rivaroxaban
- tissue factor