Introduction:
Platelets are a very important aspect of blood clotting. They are also essential in the evolution of clots in Coronary and Cerebral arteries, which cause heart attacks and strokes, respectively. Every year, 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States; this is 1 in every 4 deaths. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, killing nearly 130,000 Americans each year. According to the WHO, the total number of deaths due to cardiovascular disease is 18 million a year.
Platelet inhibiting drugs are vital in …show more content…
The reduction in the spreading velocity of KO platelets suggests that loss of Calponin hinders actin polymerization, leading to a delay in response to the contact with collagen.
These results indicate Calponin plays an important role in platelet adhesion and clot formation and supports our hypothesis. Lack of Calponin in platelets delays platelet activation and mobility. This supports our original hypothesis that Calponin is an important part of actin myosin filament in platelets and plays a major role in platelet activation and platelet spreading.
This study is extremely reliable as we have worked over and over again repeating the process, to check for any errors in the results. We have been consistently using control groups ( Wild type Mice) and subject groups (Calponin Knock-Out KO mice) thereby avoiding false positive results.
Our study suggests that Calponin is a potential target for a new class of anti-platelet medications without prolonged bleeding and minimal side effects. In short, inhibiting the action of Calponin delays the formation of clots and does not increase the bleeding time. Our findings are extremely vital to the future treatment of cardiovascular disease and