Wound Healing Could be Enhanced with Modified Maggots

The modified fly larvae also produce and release a hormone - a human growth factor - that actively stimulates cell growth and wound healing.

Maggot debridement therapy (MDT) is an approved treatment that is shown to be cost-effective for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers. It has also been used successfully to treat many other medical conditions, note the researchers, who write about their work in the journal BMC Biotechnology.

In MDT, sterile, lab-raised larvae of the green bottle fly Lucilia sericata are applied to stubborn wounds that are failing to heal, such as diabetic foot ulcers. The maggots clean the wound by removing dead tissue and disinfecting the area through the release of antimicrobial compounds.

However, note the authors, there is no evidence, from randomized clinical trials, that MDT - which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - shortens the time it takes for wounds to heal.

For that to happen, the maggots would have to do more than clean the wound; they would have to actively speed up the healing process. The researchers wondered if one way to do this was to engineer maggots that stimulate the growth of new, healthy cells.

As such, the team - from North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh and Massey University in New Zealand - decided to see if they could make a strain of maggot that releases a human growth factor that actively stimulates cell growth and survival.

In their paper, the researchers describe how they genetically engineered green bottle fly larvae to produce and secrete human platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) in response to a trigger.

PDGF-BB stimulates cell growth and survival, promotes wound healing and has been investigated as a possible topical treatment for non-healing wounds, note the authors.

To read the article in its entirety by Catharine Paddock at Medical News Today, Click Here