A silver-coated copper wire as inexpensive drug eluting stent model: determination of the relative releasing properties of leoligin and derivatives

Cardiovascular diseases are overall the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Therefore, treating and preventing coronary heart disease are of high scientific interest. Among several percutaneous coronary intervention procedures, coronary artery stenting displayed potent activity against restenosis, often observed using other invasive therapies. Nowadays, drug eluting stents’ superiority over bare metal stents is increasingly recognizable, since drug eluting stents are able to overcome problems encountered with bare metal stent technology. Within this study, we developed a novel method for performing drug-releasing experiments utilizing an affordable stent model made from a readily available silver-coated copper wire, which was further coated with poly( n -butyl methacrylate). Leoligin, previously reported to inhibit intimal hyperplasia and the regrowth of endothelial cells, was exploited along with several structural analogs in drug-releasing experiments. It was found that compounds exhibiting similar biological activity can have significantly different releasing properties, a crucial parameter to know for the selection of compounds for in vivo studies. Graphic abstract