The biological activities of (1,3)-(1,6)--d-glucan and porous electrospun PLGA membrane

In this study, we investigated the possible roles of (1,3)-(1,6)-β-D-glucan (β-glucan) and porous electrospun poly-lactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) membranes containing β-glucan for skin wound healing, especially their effect on adult human dermal fibroblast (aHDF) and adipose tissue-derived stem cell (ADSC) activation, proliferation, migration, collagen gel contraction and biological safety tests of the prepared membrane. This study demonstrated that β-glucan and porous PLGA membranes containing β-glucan have enhanced the cellular responses, proliferation and migration, of aHDFs and ADSCs and the result of a collagen gel contraction assay also revealed that collagen gels contract strongly after 4 h post-gelation incubation with β-glucan. Furthermore, we confirmed that porous PLGA membranes containing β-glucan are biologically safe for wound healing study. These results indicate that the porous PLGA membranes containing β-glucan interacted favorably with the membrane and the topical administration of β-glucan was useful in promoting wound healing. Therefore, our study suggests that β-glucan and porous PLGA membranes containing β-glucan may be useful as a material for enhancing wound healing. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) 7 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. 1748-6041/10/044109+08$30.00 1 © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK Biomed. Mater. 5 (2010) 044109 Y I Woo et al