10:38 a.m., Feb. 4, 2011----Researchers at the University of Delaware have published an article in the Feb. 4 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, reporting on their work with a protein that can contribute to thrombosis, or dangerous clots inside blood vessels.

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The researchers studied a protein called Akt kinase, which is instrumental in various cellular processes and which the scientists previously found contributes to platelet activity that can result in thrombosis when blood vessels are injured, according to Donna S. Woulfe, assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and an author of the journal article. Platelets are sticky cell fragments in blood that help form clots.

“My laboratory has been interested in how the Akt kinase in platelets is regulated,” Woulfe said. “This paper describes the identification of a new pathway to Akt regulation that involves arrestin.” Arrestin is a protein that Woulfe said “acts as a kind of scaffold that integrates signaling by two different receptors ... to lead to activation of Akt.”

“This pathway from arrestin to Akt may have implications for how sensitive we are to the development of thrombi (events that lead to stroke and heart attack) after plaque rupture in arteries,” she said.

The other authors of the article are Dongjun Li, Lauren D'Angelo and Massiel Chavez. Li and Chavez are research associates at UD.