Down Regulation of Inflammatory Markers after Treatment with Topically Administered Mucopolysaccharide Polysulfate.

Mucopolysaccharide polysulfate (MPS) represents a mammalian tracheal preparation, which mimics many of the properties of heparins including its anti-inflammatory actions. MPS is used topically for the treatment of inflammatory disorders. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that topical administration of MPS mobilizes many substances to mediate its therapeutic effects. A group of four non-human primates (Macaca Mulatta) were administered 4.5% MPS ointment in a dosage of 45 mg/kg, another four monkeys were administered placebo ointment at a dosage of 1.0 g/kg for 10 days. Citrated blood samples were drawn at baseline, 2, 4, 8 and 24 hours on days 1, 2, 5, 7 and 10. Markers of inflammation including thrombin activatable fibrinolytic inhibitor (TAFI), C-reactive protein (CRP), CD-40 Ligand (CD-40L), plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1) and monocyte chemotactic protein (MCP-1) utilizing ELISA based methods, were used to measure the anti-inflammatory response. In the MPS treated group, a down regulation of all of these markers was observed over the 10 day period. CRP (baseline, 10.2 ±3.6; day 10, 5.1 ± 2.4 μg/ml), CD-40L (baseline, 298 ± 52; day 10, 138 ± 38 pg/ml) and MCP-1 (baseline, 350 ±68; day 10, 178 ± 42 pg/ml) showed a 50% decrease in the levels of these markers at day 10 in comparison to baseline. The PAI-1 (baseline, 65.1 ±21.2; day 10, 48.2 ±12.1 ng/ml) and TAFI (baseline, 138 ±25; day 10, 99 ± 12 % NHP) levels showed a slightly lesser effect. These results suggest that the topical administration of MPS leads to a decrease in the markers of inflammation that may result in promotion of the healing of inflammatory lesions.