Topical Fibronectin Improves Wound Healing of Irradiated Skin

• Published in: Scientific reports 2017-06, Vol.7 (1), p.3876-10, Article 3876
• Main Authors: Johnson, Maxwell B., Pang, Brandon, Gardner, Daniel J., Niknam-Benia, Solmaz, Soundarajan, Vinaya, Bramos, Athanasios, Perrault, David P., Banks, Kian, Lee, Gene K., Baker, Regina Y., Kim, Gene H., Lee, Sunju, Chai, Yang, Chen, Mei, Li, Wei, Kwong, Lawrence, Hong, Young-Kwon, Wong, Alex K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 13/51; 38; 64/60; 692/4017; 692/699/4033; 82; 82/1; 82/79; 82/80; Administration, Topical; Angiogenesis; Animal models; Animals; Disease Models, Animal; Fibronectin; Fibronectins - administration & dosage; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Inflammation; Male; Mice; multidisciplinary; Protein Array Analysis; Protein arrays; Radiation Injuries - drug therapy; Radiation Injuries - metabolism; Radiation Injuries - pathology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Skin; Skin - drug effects; Skin - injuries; Skin - metabolism; Skin - pathology; Wound Healing
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-03614-y

Wound healing is significantly delayed in irradiated skin. To better understand global changes in protein expression after radiation, we utilized a reverse phase protein array (RPPA) to identify significant changes in paired samples of normal and irradiated human skin. Of the 210 proteins studied, fibronectin was the most significantly and consistently downregulated in radiation-damaged skin. Using a murine model, we confirmed that radiation leads to decreased fibronectin expression in the skin as well as delayed wound healing. Topically applied fibronectin was found to significantly improve wound healing in irradiated skin and was associated with decreased inflammatory infiltrate and increased angiogenesis. Fibronectin treatment may be a useful adjunctive modality in the treatment of non-healing radiation wounds.