Burns & Trauma (Oct 2014)

Acceleration of wound healing in acute full-thickness skin wounds using a collagen-binding peptide with an affinity for MSCs

  • Huili Wang,
  • Xin Yan,
  • Liangyun Shen,
  • Shiyan Li ,
  • Yue Lin,
  • Shuqin Wang,
  • Xiang Lin Hou,
  • Chunying Shi,
  • Yun Yang,
  • Jianwu Dai,
  • Qian Tan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4103/2321-3868.143623
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 4
pp. 181 – 186

Abstract

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Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been accepted as a promising cell source in tissue repair and regeneration. However, the inability to enrich MSCs in target areas limits their wide application. As a result, it has been a major goal to induce MSCs to be abundantly and specifically recruited to the injury site. In this study, a peptide with a specific affinity for MSCs (E7 peptide) was immobilized to a collagen scaffold via a collagen-binding domain (CBD) to construct a functional collagen scaffold. In addition, the hypothesis that this method could recruit MSCs specifically was evaluated in a porcine model. In vivo investigations indicated that due to the immunoreaction, the CBD-MSC-peptide collagen scaffold enhanced MSC adhesion and infiltration and promoted wound healing. At day 7 after surgery, we found more infiltrating cells and capillaries in the Collagen/CBD-E7 peptide group compared to the Scaffold group. At day 14, 21 and 28, a faster healing process was observed in the Collagen/CBD-E7 peptide group, with significant differences compared with the other groups (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). The results demonstrate the potential use of targeted therapy to rapidly heal skin wounds.

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