In lecture we briefly discussed bioactive glass as a material. It is a silica-based material that has the capability to bond with bone, and it contains calcium and phosphate. This material is commonly used for bone grafts, as some research suggests that it is osteoconductive properties. However there has been recent research on using this material for wound healing.

In the paper, copper-doped borate bioactive glass microfibers are used as wound dressings to assist in wound healing. Since bioactive glass is known to promote vascularization, then it is a material that can also be helpful during wound healing when the wound site requires vessels to form in order to bring oxygen to the wound site. Furthermore, the incorporation of metallic ions such as copper would further improve angiogenesis which would be more cost effective and safer than using growth factors.

Before this material was tested in vivo, it was first tested in vitro with different concentration of copper incorporated. When comparing the copper-doped bioactive glass microfibers to regular bioactive glass microfibers they found that with copper there was an increase in cell proliferation and an increase in cell migration. Additionally, from the images shown below they claimed that the copper-doped microfibers also promotes angiogenesis as there was a formation of “tube-like structures” by human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and a higher gene expression of growth factors that was not seen with the undoped microfibers. From the in vitro studies they determined that the 3Cu-BG material would be the most optimal to test in vivo as it had the most cell proliferation and migration.

In vivo they created a full-thickness skin wound in a rodent and used regular bioactive glass microfibers and 3CU-bioactive glass microfibers as wound dressing. A wound with no wound dressing served as the control. The image of this experiment is shown below. They found that there was a significant difference in the wound healing with the use of bioactive glass in comparison to no wound dressing. However, although there seemed to be a significant difference between the copper-doped bioactive glass and regular bioactive glass at day 10, by day 14 there seems to be no significant difference.

Although, the use of bioactive glass as a material used for wound healing purposes does appear to have potential, I do not agree with the study’s conclusion that copper-doped bioactive glass is a better material. Although there was an increase in cell proliferation and cell migration, the overall wound closure percentage is very similar regardless of the presence of copper. However, a future step that would give more information about the performance of this biomaterial would be in vivo studies using diabetic rodents. This study will be able to show how the material is able to aid the wound healing process when this process is compromised. In a system were the body cannot properly heal on its own, it is possible that the promotion of angiogenesis that is provide by the presence of copper will prove to be more valuable.

References:

Zhao, Shichang & Li, Le & Wang, Hui & Yadong, Zhang & Cheng, Xiangguo & Zhou, Nai & N. Rahaman, Mohamed & Liu, Zhongtang & Huang, Wenhai & Zhang, Changqing. (2015). Wound dressings composed of copper-doped borate bioactive glass microfibers stimulate angiogenesis and heal full-thickness skin defects in a rodent model. Biomaterials. 53. 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2015.02.112.