According to a study published in PloS ONE, researchers have been able to successfully stimulate wound healing by combining two bioactive peptides. The peptides stimulate blood vessels to grow and promote re-growth of tissue. Further development of these peptides could result in new treatment for acute and chronic wounds.
The study was supported in part by grants from the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and Wound Care Partners, LLC.
In pre-clinical models designed to simulate impaired wound healing as observed in individuals with uncontrolled diabetes or vascular diseases, the researchers tested a newly-developed peptide called UN3. UN3 was developed and modified from two naturally occurring peptides usually present in trace amounts and found in human platelet-rich plasma.
The team found that UN3 led to a 300% increase in cell migration in response to the injury, a 250% increase in growth of blood vessels, as well as a 50% increase in blood vessel wall development.
Lead author of the study, Tatiana Demidova-Rice, Ph.D., now a graduate of the cell, molecular and developmental biology program at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, explained:
“Using double-blinded in vivo experiments, we then applied the wound-healing peptide UN3 with a peptide created during a previous study, named comb1. We found that, together, the two out-performed all control groups, including the only FDA-approved growth factor-containing drug for treating diabetic wounds, becaplermin.”
Several peptides were identified in December 2010, by Ira Herman, Ph.D, professor of molecular physiology and pharmacology at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Demidova-Rice, from a Clostridium histolyticum collagenase treatment of bio-synthesized extracellular matrix.
After selecting key peptides, the researchers developed the peptide, comb1. One of the several strategic features comb1 possesses is its ability to activate angiogenesis by increasing blood vessel growth by 200% in vitro.
Herman, director, molecular and cellular physiology graduate program at the Sackle School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and director, Center for Innovations in Wound Healing Research, Tufts University, said:
“The confirmation that these peptides could act synergistically to improve human wound healing moves our research one significant step closer to clinical application. We hope that someday soon, we may be able to help transform the way in which would care is being delivered in civilian and combat settings.
The wound-healing peptides should also prove strategic as we continue developing ‘smart’ devices for fully-vascularized living tissue constructs for burn patients or those suffering with diabetic plantar or venous stasis ulcers. Clinical trials using the peptides will be the next step.”
Patent applications associated to the peptides have been filed by Tufts University.
Tufts Center for Innovations in Would Healing Research involved experts from Tufts’ dental, medical, engineering, and veterinary schools, in addition to Tufts Medical Center and local research institutes. Their goal is to develop new wound healing treatments and fully-vascularized organ constructs for tailored regenerative medicine.
Demidova-Rice is currently at the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology in the department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Other researchers include Lindsey Wolf, BS, formerly a research assistant at TUSM, now a graduate student working towards a PhD degree in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin; Jeffry Deckenback, PhD, who was a postdoctoral fellow in the Herman lab while the work was being carried out; and Michael R. Hamblin, PhD, a principal investigator at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor in the department of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.
Written by Grace Rattue