Blood Suckers

Blood suckers have been reported to have existed in many cultures, may be since the prehistoric times. The curiosity coupled with fear that their prevalence cast is witnessed by the huge success of the vampire fiction.  Even devils, demons subsisted on the essence of life: the blood. How those that are victimized survive after an attack is interesting, indeed.

Blood clots after an injury. Blood coagulation is an important mechanism in animals which helps them to prevent excessive bleeding caused due to rupture of blood vessels.The body dissolves these clots naturally restoring the blood flow.  Sometimes, these clots occur inside the blood vessels without any vessel being injured or do not dissolve naturally. How these parasites (ticks, bats, leaches, kissing bugs, mosquitoes)  prevent the blood from clotting in their prey and suck blood led scientists to investigate and find anti-clotting substances.

Anti-clotting Substances:

Hirudin: the medical leech Hirudo medicinalis makes a compound called 'hirudin', which inhibits  the enzymatic activity of thrombin. It has medicinal importance as it is used to treat stroke patients.

Desmoteplase: Australian vampire bat Desmodus rotundous makes 'desmoteplase', a saliveryplasminogen activator. It activates plasmin and leads to the distruction of fibrin at a rate hundreds of times faster than existing drugs. It is being tested in human patients currently.

Nitrophorin: The saliva of kissing bug, Rhodinus contain a protein called 'nitrophorin', which binds nitric oxide (NO). The bug after biting humans, injects its saliva into the blood and nitrophorin gets into the human blood vessels which bind NO and consequently dilate the blood vessel.

After extraction, isolation and purification from the suitable animal the aforesaid chemicals can be obtained. They can prevent many deaths due to strokes and heart attacks in humans as they can dissolve these pathological clots.

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