Challenging delivery of VLHL NS plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 by osmotic pumps in diabetic mouse: A case report

ALZET(®) osmotic pumps are implantable devices used in animals for the continuous infusion of drugs or proteins at controlled rates from 1 day to 4 weeks. Pumps have been used successfully in a number of studies on the effects of controlled delivery of a wide range of experimental agents, independent of their properties. In the present study, use of these pumps was made in mice with diabetic nephropathy. Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) mediates diabetic nephropathy, which is characterized by the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the kidney. Disproportionate PAI-1 inactivates tissue plasminogen activator, which is one of the proteolytic enzymes in a cascade responsible for ECM remodeling in the kidney. The decrease of PAI-1 in the kidney has been shown to arrest the progression of nephropathy in experimental animals. This was achieved using inactive PAI-1R which increased the clearance of wild-type PAI-1 in order to protect net proteolytic activity and ECM clearance. However, this protein has a brief half-life in vivo, therefore, high and frequent doses are required. Thus, VLHL NS PAI-1 protein with a long half-life of over 700 h (Gln197Cys, Gly355Cys) inactivated by single point mutation (Arg369Ala) was used. Following the sacrifice of animals the tips of the flow moderators of the osmotic pumps in the treated animals were found to be clogged. In addition, from each pump from the treatment group, but not controls, we collected 50–150 μl of clear liquid containing VLHL NS PAI-1, cellular and serum proteins suggesting early pump sealing by cellular material. In conclusion, despite encouraging results obtained for the PAI-1R protein, the method of VLHL PAI-1 delivery should be ameliorated.