Nifty Spittle: Compound in bat saliva may aid stroke patients
By Nathan Seppa
When a vampire bat bites an animal, its saliva introduces an anticlotting agent to keep the blood meal flowing. Scientists now report that this compound, which busts up blood clots as well as the leading medication for treating strokes does, avoids one of the drug’s major drawbacks.
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Researchers injected mice with chemicals that induce brain damage like that brought on by the most common type of human stroke–clots that block vessels and subsequently starve brain tissue. The scientists then injected some mice with the bat-saliva compound, called Desmodus rotundus salivary plasminogen activator (DSPA). They injected others with the standard clot-busting drug, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which shows the side effect of initiating damage to brain neurons.