Abstract
Purpose :
Disorders of corneal wound healing characterized by impaired or delayed re-epithelialization are a serious medical problem. It is known that gelsolin (GSN) promotes re-epithelialisation of human corneal epitheliacells (HCE). GSN is one of the most abundant actin-binding proteins, which takes part in different cell mechanisms like mobility, metabolism and phagocytosis. We here tested whether a new autohaemotherapy based on GSN (GOLDIC) enrichment might be an option for the treatment of ocular surface wounds.
Methods :
Immortalised HCE cells were used for wound-healing experiments. After culturing HCE for 2 days a wound area was defined and cells were treated without serum (control), with serum without GSN enrichment (serum) or with GSN enriched serum (serum GSN) for 24 hours. The wound area was measured at several time points afterwards. In addition, electric cell impedance sensing (ECIS) experiments were performed to test proliferation and migration capacity of HCE cells stimulated according to the mentioned groups. Furthermore, HCE cells were cultured in the mentioned groups to analyse possible anti-inflammatory effects of GSN. For this, pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, IL-9, IL-10, IL-17), growth factors (TGF-β, TNF-α, VEGF) and proteins (GSN, actin, GAPDH) were analysed by ELISA, Western-blot and qRT-PCR.
Results :
The wound closure rate of HCE reveals significant differences between the groups. After 9h a significant faster wound closure was observed between the control (57.33±2.07%) and the serum groups (serum: 47.05±10.84%, p= 0.0360; serum GSN: 42.06±8.21%, p= 0.0469). ECIS revealed an increased proliferation rate and faster migration of HCE cells stimulated with serum compared to control cells. Cell culture experiments demonstrated a regulatory effect of serum GSN to pro- as well as to anti-inflammatory molecules in HCE cells.
Conclusions :
A GOLDIC autohaemotherapy can be a suitable alternative for common treatments of ocular surface and inflammatory diseases of the eye and might help to promote re-epithelisation. Further experiments are under way to understand how GSN supports wound-closure and whether GSN can be provided in other ways.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.