Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America.
Department of Dermatology, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Jun 14;19(6):e0303692. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303692. eCollection 2024.
Electrical signaling plays a crucial role in the cellular response to tissue injury in wound healing and an external electric field (EF) may expedite the healing process. Here, we have developed a standalone, wearable, and programmable electronic device to administer a well-controlled exogenous EF, aiming to accelerate wound healing in an in vivo mouse model to provide pre-clinical evidence. We monitored the healing process by assessing the re-epithelization rate and the ratio of M1/M2 macrophage phenotypes through histology staining. Following three days of treatment, the M1/M2 macrophage ratio decreased by 30.6% and the re-epithelization in the EF-treated wounds trended towards a non-statically significant 24.2% increase compared to the control. These findings provide point towards the effectiveness of the device in shortening the inflammatory phase by promoting reparative macrophages over inflammatory macrophages, and in speeding up re-epithelialization. Our wearable device supports the rationale for the application of programmed EFs for wound management in vivo and provides an exciting basis for further development of our technology based on the modulation of macrophages and inflammation to better wound healing.
电信号在组织损伤后的细胞反应中起着至关重要的作用，外加电场（EF）可能会加速愈合过程。在这里，我们开发了一种独立的、可穿戴的、可编程的电子设备，以施加良好控制的外源性 EF，旨在为体内小鼠模型的加速伤口愈合提供临床前证据。我们通过组织学染色评估再上皮化率和 M1/M2 巨噬细胞表型的比例来监测愈合过程。经过三天的治疗，EF 处理组的 M1/M2 巨噬细胞比例下降了 30.6%，与对照组相比，EF 处理组的再上皮化趋势呈非显著增加 24.2%。这些发现表明该设备通过促进修复性巨噬细胞而不是炎症性巨噬细胞来缩短炎症期，从而加快再上皮化，具有有效性。我们的可穿戴设备支持在体内应用程控 EF 进行伤口管理的原理，并为进一步开发基于巨噬细胞和炎症调节以实现更好的伤口愈合的技术提供了令人兴奋的基础。
