Acceleration of the wound healing process by using angiogenic peptides has been demonstrated
previously. Herewe used select laminin-111 peptides, A13 and C16, fromthe laminin
1 and 1 chain, respectively, to test whether they are able to stimulatewound healing in a
rat full thicknesswound model. The 12-mer peptides C16 and A13 are highly angiogenic and
bind to integrins v3 and 51. We show that A13 increases wound re-epithelialization
as much as 17% over controls by day 4 and C16 increases coverage by 11%. Contraction of
the treatedwoundswas increased as much as 11% for A13 and 8% for C16 at day 4. No differences
were observed at day 7 with either peptide. The peptides also stimulated fibroblast
migration in Boyden chamber assays. A13 increased cell migration as much as 2.4-fold on
uncoated filters and as much as 16-fold on collagen type IV-coated filters over negative controls.
Similarly, C16 also stimulated migration 1.8-fold on uncoated filters and as much as
12-fold on collagen-coated filters. A13 and C16 significantly decreased expression of the pro
and active forms of matrixmetalloproteinase 2 in foreskin fibroblasts indicating their role in
collagen accumulation.We conclude that small bioactive angiogenic peptides can promote
dermal wound healing and may offer a new class of stable and chemically manipulable
therapeutics for wound healing.