Summary:
Scientist have demonstrated for the first time that their peptide-hydrogel biomaterial prompts skin cells to ‘crawl’ toward one another, closing chronic, non-healing wounds often associated with diabetes, such as bed sores and foot ulcers.
Chronic wounds- new modality of healing with peptides.
Time may not heal all wounds, but a proprietary mix of peptides and gel developed by U of T Engineering researchers heals most. A team led by Professor Milica Radisic had demonstrated for the first-time that their peptide-hydrogel biomaterial prompts skin cells to “crawl” toward one another, closing chronic, non-healing wounds often associated with diabetes such as bed sores and foot ulcers.
The team tested their biomaterial on healthy cells from the surface of human skin, called keratinocytes, as well as those derived from elderly diabetic patients. They saw non-healing wounds closing at a faster rate with collagen-based product.
We were happy when we saw the cells crawl together much faster with our biomaterial, but if it didn’t work with diabetic cells, that would have been the end of the story,” says Radisic. “But even the diabetic cells travelled much faster — that’s huge.”
Till now most of the treatments for chronic wounds involved applying topical ointments that promote the growth of blood vessels to the area. But in diabetic patients, blood vessel growth is inhibited making those treatment ineffective. Radisic and her team have been working with their special peptide- QHREDGS also known as Q peptide for around 10years. They knew it promoted survival of many different cell types, including stem cells, heart cells and fibroblasts (the cells that make connective tissues) but had never applied it to wound healing. “We thought that if we were able to use our peptide to both promote survival and give these skin cells a substrate, so they could crawl together, they would be able to close the wound more quickly,” says Radisic. “That was the underlying hypothesis.”
Radisic and students compared the Q-peptide hydrogel mix to the commercially available collagen dressing, to hydrogels without peptide and to no treatment. They found that a single dose of their peptide hydrogel biomaterial closed the wounds in less than 2 weeks. Their work was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Diabetic wound healing is a complex condition because many aspects of the normal wound healing process are disrupted- I know people with diabetic foot ulcers and the possibility to improve their lives drove me throughout this work” said Xiao, the paper’s lead author.
They teamed with Covalon Technologies Ltd., a company dedicated to the research and development and commercialization of novel healthcare technologies, on this project. Covalon’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Val DiTizio, has been leading the partnership with Radisic’s group for about three years, and contributed its collagen-based wound-healing dressing, ColActive, as one of the controls.
This finding could have big implications for many types of wound treatments, from the recovery after a heart attack to healing post-surgery. Healing time is also increased reducing the opportunity for infection, says Reis.
“One of the biggest challenges with the work was convincing our peers that the results we were getting were indeed true, as they were staggering, even to us,” he says. “Being confident in our methods and diligent in our research and analysis prevailed in the end.”