The role of allogenic keratin‐derived dressing in wound healing in a mouse model

Abstract

Keratin is an interesting protein needed for wound healing and tissue recovery. We have recently proposed a new, simple and inexpensive method to obtain fur and hair keratin-derived biomaterials suitable for medical application. The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of the fur keratin-derived protein (FKDP) dressing in the allogenic full-thickness surgical skin wound model. The data obtained using scanning electron microscopy showed that employed processed biomaterial had higher surface porosity compared with control raw material. From the MTS test, it was found keratin biomaterial is not only toxic to the NIH/3T3 cell line (p < 0.05), but also enhances cell proliferation compared with the control. In vivo studies have shown keratin dressings are tissue biocompatible, accelerate wound closure and epithelialization to the statistically significant differences on day 5 (p < 0.05) in comparison to control wounds. Histological examination revealed, that in FKDP-treated wounds the inflammatory response contained predominantly macrophages whilst their morphological untreated variants showed mixed cell infiltrates rich in neutrophils. Predominant macrophages based response creates more favorable environment for healing. In FKDP-dressed wounds the number of microhemorrhages was also significantly decreased (p < 0.05) as compared with undressed wounds. Applied keratin dressing favors reconstruction of a more regular skin structure and assures better cosmetic effect in terms of scar formation and appearance. In conclusion, fur keratin-derived protein dressings significantly accelerated wound healing in the mouse model. Further studies are needed to determine the molecular mechanisms involved in the multilayer wound healing process and to assess the possible use of these dressings for medical purposes.

Evaluation of keratin biomaterial containing silver nanoparticles as a potential wound dressing in full‐thickness skin wound model in diabetic mice

“…However, in control animals, after wound induction, some signs of oozing were observed, although without exceeding 10–15% of the wound total area. Our previous experiments and literature data have showed that keratin biomaterials possess some sorption properties (Konop et al, ). Statistical analysis revealed that applying the dressing significantly accelerated wound healing in the first 8 days after wounding.…”

“…In our previous study performed on normal mice, macrophages and histiocytes predominated in wounds treated with FKDP dressing. On the other hand, in the control wounds, neutrophils with occasional histiocytes and lymphocytes were continuously present during post‐wounding period (Konop et al, ).…”

“…The surgical procedure was performed in general anesthesia according to the method described by Konop et al (, ). Briefly, two full‐thickness wounds were performed on the mice back.…”

Keratin scaffolds with human adipose stem cells: Physical and biological effects toward wound healing

“…However, only few studies of keratin have discussed about the development of such biomaterial in stem cells and animal models tissue engineering applications (Konop et al, , Konop et al, , Lin, Yang, et al, ). The present study provides systematic in vitro and in vivo investigations of different concentration of keratin scaffolds produced using the freeze‐drying technique.…”

“…Keratin has been employed in biomedical utilization, especially for hemostasis and wound healing (Konop et al, 2017;Shavandi, Silva, Bekhit, & Bekhit, 2017;Than et al, 2012). Previous researches indicated that keratin extracted from human hair fibers contains cell adhesion (motifs RGD [Arg-Gly-Asp] and LVD [Leu- Asp-Val], which are also found in extracellular matrix proteins such as fibronectin (Makarem & Humphries, 1991;Marshall, Orwin, & Gillespie, 1991;Yamauchi, Hojo, Yamamoto, & Tanabe, 2003).…”