Bandage for diabetics
Plasma treatment of wound dressings helped fight diabetic ulcers
RNF Press Service
Russian scientists together with foreign colleagues have proposed a new approach to the creation of nanostructured wound coatings. Plasma treatment made it possible to obtain unique materials that improve skin regeneration even in such severe cases as non-healing diabetic wounds. The results of the work supported by a grant from the Presidential Program of the Russian Science Foundation (RNF) are published in the journal Plasma Processes and Polymers (Solovieva et al., Plasma-coated PCL scaffolds with immobilized platelet-rich plasma enhance the wound healing in diabetics mice).
Histological analysis results: normal skin; defect covered with nanofibers; control defect.
Every tenth adult on the planet suffers from diabetes mellitus. This chronic disease occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough of the hormone insulin, among other things responsible for glucose metabolism, or the body becomes immune to it. At the same time, almost all tissues and cells suffer, including their recovery processes. As a result, so—called diabetic ulcers often develop - long-term non-healing wounds that are difficult to treat. A long-open wound is a "gateway" for the penetration of pathogens, and the infection that joins complicates the treatment of ulcers. Without proper attention, they can lead to the need for amputation of the affected limb.
"The therapy of such poorly healing wounds includes both surgical removal of dead tissue to clean the wound, and the use of various dressings. Their role is, on the one hand, to prevent bacteria from entering the site of the defect, and on the other hand, to provide the best conditions for healing," says Anastasia Solovyova, Candidate of Biological Sciences, head of the Laboratory of Pharmacological Active Compounds of the Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Lymphology.
The recipe for an ideal wound coating at first glance seems simple: the dressing should provide oxygen access to the tissues and the removal of excess fluid, while protecting against external factors, including pathogens, and stimulate wound regeneration. However, its creation is a difficult task in the conditions of a systemic disease. There are quite a lot of works on the development of such coatings, but those that demonstrate high efficiency and are economically available have an advantage. The most promising are biodegradable polymers, the surface of which is modified for various tasks.
"Such materials serve as the basis for survival, migration, division and differentiation of cells. It is important that their structure is as close as possible to that of the natural framework of our tissues — the intercellular substance. It is a bioactive substance in itself, and we want to achieve similar properties by creating new wound coatings," adds Anton Manakhov, project manager for the RNF grant, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, senior researcher at NIIKEL.
Employees of NIIKEL (Novosibirsk) and NUST MISIS (Moscow) have developed a methodology for creating biodegradable films from nanofibers. The technology is based on plasma treatment of the initial polymer (it was polycaprolactone, widely used as a suture material) in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons. By simply changing the deposition time of the charged substance in the process, the authors synthesized materials with different structures, which made it possible to optimize the properties of nanofibers.
To give their products biological activity, the authors impregnated them with plasma (a liquid component of blood) with platelets. Although these cells are best known for their ability to form blood clots in wounds, they also secrete a whole range of substances that trigger regeneration processes. Together, such a system accelerated wound healing in rodents by 32% compared to the control group, where the defect was not covered by anything.
"We plan to further improve the characteristics of our biomedical products. In the new works, the central research will be on how the regeneration of tissues is affected by a combination of several bioactive components, such as a variety of proteins (including those obtained using genetic engineering), growth factors and others," Anton Manakhov sums up.
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