BIOIMPACTS

Introduction: Diabetic burn wounds and ulcers are significant complications of diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of platelet rich-plasma (PRP) and/or keratinocyte-like cells (KLCs) in diabetic thermal wound rat model and to evaluate EGF, FGF-2, TGF-beta 1, COL1 alpha 2, MCP-1 and VEGF-alpha as wound healing markers at the gene expression level. Methods: In this study, we used adipose tissue as the source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and differentiated MSCs into KLCs. KLCs were characterized and transferred to the burn areas on the dorsum of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. We prepared PRP from rat blood and evaluated its effect alone or in combination with KLCs. On the 3rd, 7th, 10th and 14th days after the treatment, the wound areas were measured and biopsy samples were excised from the wound areas of the KLCs and/or PRP-treated and the untreated diabetic rats to analyze the gene expression levels of the wound healing markers by qPCR. Results: We observed that, wound contraction started earlier in the PRP and/or KLCs-treated groups in comparison to the control group. However, PRP and KLCs when applied in combination showed additive affect in the wound healing. In all groups treated with KLCs and/or PRP, the gene expression levels of evaluated growth factors and COL1a2 increased, while MCP-1 levels decreased when compared to the untreated diabetic rats. In addition, the most prominent difference in qPCR results belongs to the combined PRP and KLCs-treated group. Conclusion: We demonstrated that applying PRP and KLCs in combination has a greater potential for the treatment of diabetic burn wounds