Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Sep;18(9):2422-2424.
doi: 10.1111/jth.14898. Epub 2020 Aug 27.

Heparin - An old drug with multiple potential targets in Covid-19 therapy

Ulf Lindahl  1 , Jin-Ping Li  1
Affiliations

Heparin - An old drug with multiple potential targets in Covid-19 therapy

Ulf Lindahl et al. J Thromb Haemost. 2020 Sep.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The structural/functional relationship between heparin and heparan sulfate provides the following. (A) Conjectured heparin chain composed of alternating units of hexuronic acid (D‐glucuronic acid, GlcA, or L‐iduronic acid, IdoA) and D‐glucosamine (GlcN); sulfate groups are indicated by yellow circles. The AT‐binding pentasaccharide sequence carries a unique sulfate group at carbon 3 of the internal GlcN residue; this 3‐O‐sulfate group is present in HA‐ but not in LA‐heparin. (B) HS structure, composed of the same building blocks as heparin, but with more sparse distribution of IdoA and sulfate residues. These components are typically accumulated in more densely sulfated domains that vary in structure depending on cellular origin. The sulfated domains provide sites for interactions of varying specificity with a multitude of proteins. (C) Schematic illustration of two proteins with distinct requirements for binding structures on HS chains, yet both interacting with heparin. Rather than nonspecific, such interaction may depend on “hidden specificity,” the selective HS epitopes being expressed also in the heavily sulfated heparin chain, albeit masked by redundant sulfate groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Lillicrap D. Disseminated intravascular coagulation in patients with 2019‐nCoV pneumonia. J Thromb Haemost. 2020;18(4):786–787. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Thachil J. The versatile heparin in COVID‐19. J Thromb Haemost. 2020;18(5):1020–1022. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tang N., Bai H., Chen X., Gong J., Li D., Sun Z. Anticoagulant treatment is associated with decreased mortality in severe coronavirus disease 2019 patients with coagulopathy. J Thromb Haemost. 2020;18(5):1094–1099. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tang N., Li D., Wang X., Sun Z. Abnormal coagulation parameters are associated with poor prognosis in patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia. J Thromb Haemost. 2020;18(4):844–847. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lindahl U., Backstrom G., Thunberg L., Leder I.G. Evidence for a 3‐O‐sulfated D‐glucosamine residue in the antithrombin‐binding sequence of heparin. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1980;77(11):6551–6555. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types