Human placenta has abundant amount of molecules which have high biological activities such as deoxyribose moiety, hormones, enzymes, vitamins, various growth factors and cytokines. Traditionally, human placenta has been used on burns, chronic ulcers, ...
Human placenta has abundant amount of molecules which have high biological activities such as deoxyribose moiety, hormones, enzymes, vitamins, various growth factors and cytokines. Traditionally, human placenta has been used on burns, chronic ulcers, and skin defects of large areas. Recently, human placenta is widely used in the form of human placental extracts (HPE) in anti-aging therapy, atopic dermatitis, asthma, and liver diseases. However, it is unclear whether the effect of HPE is same as human placenta and the mechanism and the role of HPE has not been clarified scientifically.We observed the wound healing effect of human placenta and found that wound healing was indeed accelerated by HPE in an artificial wound model. The study was focused on the mechanism of how HPE influences the wound healing. A total of 10 mice (ICR mouse, 5 weeks old male, 30g) were divided into an experimental group and a control group and an 8mm diameter single full thickness skin defect was made on the dorsal side of the each mouse using a biopsy punch. Preparatory experiments were performed to find out the effective dose for wound healing in advance. As a result, 2.0 × 10-3 ml/30g HPE was injected into the margin of the wound.The change in wound size was measured by digital images taken every three days for two weeks and evaluated using a digital image analysis program. On days 6 and 14, tissue biopsies were performed and hematoxylin and eosin stain was done for histologic evaluation. For the evaluation and analysis of TGF-β, VEGF, and CD31+, immunohistochemical staining was performed and the intensity of the staining was calculated. Also, to figure out the degree of collagen synthesis after the wound healing was complete, Masson’s trichrome staining was done on the 14th day tissue samples.By evaluating the 14 days of wound healing, we found that the experimental group showed acceleration of the wound size reduction from the 3rd day to the 9th day of wound healing when compared to the control group. TGF-β, on the 6th day of wound healing, showed statistically significant increase in experimental group but reduced in both groups by the 14th day. VEGF was increased in both groups and the increase progressed with wound healing. Especially on the 14th day, the experimental group showed statistically significant increase in VEGF than the control group. CD31+, which stains the vascular endothelial cells, was increased in experimental group as the wound healing progressed. However, no statistically significant difference between the two groups was noted despite the increase compared to the initial data. Total number of vessels was counted and the increase in neovascularization was confirmed in the experimental group but the difference between two groups was not statistical significant. There was no difference in the degree and arrangement of the collagen synthesis between two groups.HPE showed positive effects on wound healing when administered locally. Especially, inflammatory responses were increased in the early wound healing phase probably resulting from the increase in TGF-β and neovascularization was increased in the late wound healing phase by the increase in VEGF. We conclude that HPE enhances the wound healing by influencing the cytokines related to the wound healing process.