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. 2023 Apr 5:16:1205-1215.
doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S402212. eCollection 2023.

Elevated Levels of Procoagulant Microvesicles and Tissue-Factor Bearing Microvesicles in Malaria Patients

Aymen M Madkhali  1 , Abdullah A Mobarki  1 , Ahmad H Ghzwani  2 , Hesham M Al-Mekhlafi  2 , Ahmed Zhranei  1 , Abdulrahman Osais  1 , Ahmed Sohel  1 , Basim Othman  3 , Gasim Dobie  1 , Hassan A Hamali  1
Affiliations

Elevated Levels of Procoagulant Microvesicles and Tissue-Factor Bearing Microvesicles in Malaria Patients

Aymen M Madkhali et al. Int J Gen Med. .

Abstract

Background: Procoagulant microvesicles (MVs) are submicron membrane fragments released from activated cells and cells undergoing apoptosis. The procoagulant activity of MVs is enhanced in the presence of tissue factor (TF). MVs and TF are active mediators that induce pro-inflammatory response and prothrombotic tendency and have been linked to the severity of several disorders, including malaria infection. The current study aimed to measure the levels of circulating procoagulant MVs and TF-bearing MVs in malaria patients and correlate these levels with other hematological parameters and parasitemia.

Materials and methods: Levels of MVs and TF-bearing MVs in the plasma of children and adult patients infected with Plasmodium falciparum were measured alongside matched healthy controls.

Results: Patients with Plasmodium falciparum infection had ~3.8 times MVs (p < 0.0001) and ~13.0 times TF-bearing MVs compared to the matched healthy controls. MVs showed inverse significant correlation with platelet count (p = 0.0055), hemoglobin (p = 0.0004) and parasitemia.

Conclusion: Elevated levels of MVs and TF-bearing MVs could be useful biomarkers to evaluate the procoagulant activity, inflammatory response and parasitemia levels in malaria infection, aiding in better management of the disease.

Keywords: malaria; microvesicles; procoagulant; prothrombotic inflammation; tissue factor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Levels of procoagulant microvesicles (A) and tissue factor-bearing microvesicles (B) in malaria patients (patients) compared to matched-healthy controls (controls). (A) Levels of microvesicles in the plasma of the patients compared to controls. (B) Levels of tissue factor-bearing microvesicles in the plasma of the patients compared to controls. Individual data are shown from malaria patients (n=48) and healthy controls (n=42) with the horizontal line representing the mean of data. The differences between the patients and controls were determined using independent unpaired t-test.
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