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GROWTH FACTOR HEALS WOUNDS

December 01, 2000

Russian physicians suggested a new way of wound treatment with substances released by the human or animal body itself.

There is no way of wound treatment that would satisfy all surgeons. Doctors permanently define more precisely processes occurring in wound so the theory outruns the treatment techniques. Recently scientists have investigate the possibility to use growth factors namely epidermal growth factor (EGF) for wound treatment. Russian researchers of the Vyshnevsky Institute of Surgery and the Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, studied thoroughly how EGF influences wound healing and concluded that EGF make it faster.
        Growth factors are proteins forced cells to divide. Many cells including neurons and skin cells release EGF. Cells of submaxillary salivary glands in mice release a lot of EGF so they suit to isolate this protein. Interestingly, EGF does not change during evolution - growth factors of human and mice are quite similar.
        If wound skins over, its cells have to divide and specialize very rapidly, therefore, they need to feed. To simplify, we can describe wound healing as formation of capillaries in damaged place and the following growth of tissue around them. The farther are cells from tiny blood vessels, the slower they divide.
        The researchers combined EGF and collagen pellicle normally used for wound covering. Damaged tissues released a special enzyme, collagenase dissolving the pellicle. Then the collagen took part in new tissue formation and the wound healed quicker. As the pellicle dissolved, EGF came to the wound uniformly and gradually. Obviously, those who had wounds were rats - they had little skin damages at their backs, up to 3 cm in diameter.
        Rats treated with EGF-collagen complex had wounds quickly grown by blood vessels with rapidly dividing cells around them. Forty-eight hours later the number of vessels was decreased and after seven days the wounds healed in 80% of subjects.
        Control animals treated with collagen pellicle and without EGF were not going well. Their vessels grow slower, tissues regenerated worse and at 10th day of treatment when all FGF-treated rats were healthy 70% of controls had some wounds. They healed only after 12 days.
        The researcher suppose that these data can be used to develop new, biologically active pellicles which will be useful for applied medicine.

Informnauka (Informscience) Agency