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A New Protein Therapy for Skin Wound Healing

Feb, 2022

A protein called Agrin was discovered to promote wound healing and fix after skin tissue injury.

Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore found a new Agrin protein therapy to speed up the skin tissue healing and fix for long-term wounds from burns or diabetes. The research wat published in the Nature Communication journal by Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) on November 3, 2021. One in 20 peoples suffers from chronic injuries in Singapore. Complications of long-term wound healing are prevalent in patients with diabetes or burn injuries, and are a major cause of dislocation and loss of emotional health for patients. A large portion of the extracellular matrix (ECM) that helps rebuild tissue is lost during injury, which results in delayed wound healing.

Dr. Sayan Chakraborty (Lead researcher of the study) said, “In our preclinical wound healing models we found that as compared to collagen gels in market, Agrin Protein therapy speeds up the healing.” This study has proved that timely installation or external supplementation of Agrin, ECM protein, can promote faster healing of harmed skin tissues. They used both human as well as pre-clinical models in which they found that physical injury increases the expression of Agrin in skin tissues, which protects the structure of harmed skin layers by fixing skin tissues. It has been found that a rejoint piece of Agrin, which can be easily formulated, can act as a bio-additive ingredient to enhance healing if used as a topical hydrogel on wound skin. These findings will lead to the development of agronomic-based bio-scaffolds that can quickly heal damaged skin tissue by restoring damaged tissue.

Recent studies in various laboratories in the scientific community have determined the role of Agrin in the fix and revitalization of various tissues and organs. This study could offer a new approach to regenerative medicine over traditional chronic wound healing and enhance health outcomes. Further, the research team plans to expand the testing of Agrin therapy on pre-clinical wound treatment models to enhance the effectiveness of the study, as well as develop bio-printed scaffolds with Agrin that could help fix damaged tissues.