Poster abstracts

Poster number 111 submitted by Jaideep Banerjee

Improvement of human keratinocyte migration by a redox active bioelectric dressing

Jaideep Banerjee (Department of Surgery, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center), Piya Das Ghatak (Department of Surgery, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center), Sashwati Roy (Department of Surgery, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center), Savita Khanna (Department of Surgery, Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center), Emily K Sequin, Karen Bellman, Vish V. Subramaniam (Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus), Bryan C. Dickinson, Christopher J Chang (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA)

Abstract:
Exogenous application of an electric field may direct cell migration and improve wound healing. However, this principle remains to be optimally utilized to improve patient care. Optimal device design that would fit the needs of broader wound care remains a challenge. To that end it is important to understand the cellular and molecular basis of how therapeutic electric field may influence wound tissue and cells. Here we sought to characterize a novel FDA-approved, redox-active bioelectric dressing (BED) and is currently used for patient care at our wound center. Scanning electron microscope images, and energy dispersive spectroscopic X-ray analysis identified silver and zinc as the principle components of BED. These metals are placed in proximity of about 1 mm to each other thus forming a redox couple and generating an ideal potential in the order of 1 Volt in the presence of a conductive liquid medium (e.g. wound fluid). With emphasis on wound re-epithelialization, results on keratinocyte cell migration are reported. In a standard scratch assay, BED accelerated human keratinocyte migration (p<0.05, n=9). Such effect was enabled by three inter-related mechanisms: (i) elevated endogenous H2O2 (catalase and N-acetyl cysteine sensitive), known to be a potent driver of redox signaling, (ii) increased phosphorylation of IGF1R as recognized based on a human phospho-RTK array screen and (iii) reduction of protein thiols and increase in integrinαv expression (p<0.05, n=4), both of which are known to be drivers of cell migration. Furthermore, BED elevated keratinocyte mitochondrial membrane potential (n=6, p<0.05), and glucose uptake (n=4, p<0.05). Findings of this work raises an interesting possibility that electron flow in BED may cross-talk with biological redox processes thus influencing cell and tissue function.

Keywords: wound healing, bioelectric dressing, cell migration