Microplasma Treatment versus Negative Pressure Therapy for Promoting Wound Healing in Diabetic Mice.
The delayed healing response of diabetic wounds is a major challenge for treatment. Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) has been widely used to treat chronic wounds. However, it usually requires a long treatment time and results in directional growth of wound healing skin tissue. We investigated whether nonthermal microplasma (MP) treatment can promote the healing of skin wounds in diabetic mice. Splint excision wounds were created on diabetic mice, and various wound healing parameters were compared among MP treatment, NPWT, and control groups. Quantitative analysis of the re-epithelialization percentage by detecting Ki67 and DSG1 expression in the extending epidermal tongue (EET) of the wound area and the epidermal proliferation index (EPI) was subsequently performed. Both treatments promoted wound healing by enhancing wound closure kinetics and wound bed blood flow; this was confirmed through histological analysis and optical coherence tomography. Both treatments also increased Ki67 and DSG1 expression in the EET of the wound area and the EPI to enhance re-epithelialization. Increased Smad2/3/4 mRNA expression was observed in the epidermis layer of wounds, particularly after MP treatment. The results suggest that the Smad-dependent transforming growth factor β signaling contributes to the enhancement of re-epithelialization after MP treatment with an appropriate exposure time. Overall, a short-term MP treatment (applied for 30 s twice a day) demonstrated comparable or better efficacy to conventional NPWT (applied for 4 h once a day) in promoting wound healing in diabetic mice. Thus, MP treatment exhibits promise for treating diabetic wounds clinically.
['Shao|Pei-Lin|PL|', 'Liao|Jiunn-Der|JD|', 'Wu|Shun-Cheng|SC|', 'Chen|Yu-Hsing|YH|', 'Wong|Tak-Wah|TW|0000-0002-0131-7339']
D000818:Animals D051183:Desmoglein 1 D003921:Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental D066298:In Vitro Techniques D019394:Ki-67 Antigen D008297:Male D051379:Mice D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains D054843:Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy D009569:Nitric Oxide D058626:Plasma Gases D058629:Plasma Skin Regeneration D012333:RNA, Messenger D062326:Re-Epithelialization D012039:Regional Blood Flow D015398:Signal Transduction D012867:Skin D051785:Smad Proteins D016212:Transforming Growth Factor beta D014945:Wound Healing
diabetic wound negative pressure wound therapy re-epithelialization transforming growth factor β signaling nonthermal microplasma treatment