New Research Helps Accelerate Diabetic Wound Healing

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame have recently identified enzymes that are detrimental to diabetic wound healing and could be beneficial to help repair wounds.

At this time, as there are currently no therapeutics of diabetic wound healing, the current standard suggests that care can be alleviate through palliative in order to keep the wound clean and free of infection.

In the United States, it's estimated that 66,000 diabetic individuals undergo lower-limb amputations as wounds are unable to heal.

Gelatinases, a class of enzymes that have been implicated in a host of human diseases from cancer over a variety of cardiovascular conditions, including researchers the activation of MMPs, while particularly looking at gelatinase B or MMP-9.

The researchers remodeled the MMPs via an extracellular matrix with tissue during wound healing.

"We show that MMP-9 is detrimental to wound healing, while MMP-8 is beneficial," Chang said. "Our studies provide a strategy for diabetic wound healing by using selective MMP-9 inhibitors."

The team treated diabetic mice with an inhibitor of MMP-9 and discovered that wounds were healed 92 percent after 14 days, as compared to 74 percent healing in untreated mice.

The identification of the enzyme that interferes with diabetic wound healing and that which repairs the wound opens the door to new, novel treatment strategies.

"Currently, advanced wound dressings containing collagen are used for diabetic wound healing," Chang said. "The collagen provides a substrate so that the unregulated MMP-9 chews on the collagen in the dressing, rather than on the wound. It would be better to treat the diabetic wounds with a selective MMP-9 inhibitor to inhibit the culprit enzyme that is impeding wound healing while leaving the beneficial MMP-8 uninhibited to help repair the wound."

More information from the study can be found via the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Chemical Biology.