Q. What’s the whole deal with Gla residues, vitamin K and the Coumadin drugs?
A. Great question! I get the best questions from our readers – thank you.
First, a little review of a pertinent part of coagulation. In order to bind calcium (which is a critical part of coagulation), several proteins involved in coagulation need to be carboxylated. These are called vitamin-K-dependent (for reasons we’ll talk about in a second) coagulation factors, and you should commit them to memory: factors II, VII, IX, and X and proteins C and S. Carboxylation happens at glutamate residues, and the new, carboxylated residues are called gamma-carboxyglutamate residues (abbreviated GLA residues).
These factors are vitamin-K-dependent because Vitamin K is the thing that performs the carboxylation.  As it does so, it becomes oxidized, and has to be converted back into a reduced state before it can be used again. The enzyme that recycles vitamin K from its oxidized state back to its reduced state is called Vitamin K epoxide reductase.
Now, on to warfarin (Coumadin). Warfarin is sometimes referred to as a vitamin K antagonist because it inhibits the vitamin-K-dependent factors (listed above). It does so by inhibiting vitamin K epoxide reductase, thus preventing the recycling of vitamin K, and the carboxylation of the vitamin-K-dependent factors. It takes a while to see the effects of warfarin, because at the time you give the drug, you have normal (carboxylated) factors II, VII, IX and X around. These normal factors disappear after a while, though. Of all of these factors, the one with the shortest half life is factor VII. That’s why we use the INR (which measures the extrinsic pathway of coagulation) to monitor patients on warfarin therapy. You could also use the PTT – but by the time the factors on that side of the pathway are decreased, your patient might be over-anti-coagulated.
Thanks! Great answer – really cleared things up!
Awesome. This site is amazing.
Now that we known that the Coumadin will in a way, stop the building up of new blood clots, the next question for me is to know: How the Coumadin will help dissolve the existing clots inside my blood vessels (dvt)
Good question. Coumadin does not help dissolve existing clots! You need a different medication for that. One that’s been around a long time is streptokinase, which dissolves clots by acting like tissue plasminogen activator (the thing that turns plasminogen into plasmin, which one of the things that busts up clots).
This post is amazing!! I really have the ‘ding ‘ sound ringing in my mind just now! thanks alot and keep it up!
That was helpful, I thought the Warfrin would dissolve the clots in my dialysis access. Now I am going to look up the drug streptokinase, and see what side effects it has.
So when people say that Warfarin is a “blood thinner” it is actually a misnomer. Since it is not actually “thinning” the blood, but rather, preventing the clotting mechanism. Is that correct?
Yes! “Blood thinner” is a lay term that could be used to cover a lot of different anticoagulant drugs!