Silencing FL2 Accelerates Wound Healing
A reliable means to safely accelerate natural healing would be a generally useful technology for all stages of life, but it is the elderly who suffer the most due to slower and more dysfunctional healing of even minor injuries:
An experimental therapy cut in half the time it takes to heal wounds compared to no treatment at all. Researchers discovered that an enzyme called fidgetin-like 2 (FL2) puts the brakes on skin cells as they migrate towards wounds to heal them. They reasoned that the healing cells could reach their destination faster if their levels of FL2 could be reduced. So they developed a drug that inactivates the gene that makes FL2 and then put the drug in tiny gel capsules called nanoparticles and applied the nanoparticles to wounds on mice. The treated wounds healed much faster than untreated wounds. "We envision that our nanoparticle therapy could be used to speed the healing of all sorts of wounds, including everyday cuts and burns, surgical incisions, and chronic skin ulcers, which are a particular problem in the elderly and people with diabetes."The wound-healing therapy uses molecules of silencing RNA (siRNAs) specific for FL2. The siRNAs act to silence genes. They do so by binding to a gene's messenger RNA (mRNA), preventing the mRNA from being translated into proteins (in this case, the enzyme FL2). However, siRNAs on their own won't be effectively taken up by cells, particularly inside a living organism. They will be quickly degraded unless they are put into some kind of delivery vehicle, and so the researchers collaborated with another group who had developed nanoparticles that protect molecules such as siRNA from being degraded as they ferry the molecules to their intended targets. The nanoparticles with their siRNA cargoes were then tested by topically applying them to mice with either skin excisions or burns. In both cases, the wounds closed more than twice as fast as in untreated controls. "Not only did the cells move into the wounds faster, but they knew what to do when they got there. We saw normal, well-orchestrated regeneration of tissue, including hair follicles and the skin's supportive collagen network."
Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/aeco-nnt032615.php
So this even repaired the ecm? This factor is presumably present in young plasma which again opens the door to epigenetic therapy using plasma exchange. Young Mileau can definitely restore function to a lot of the body, the technology is also safety approved. This experiment is another vindication that we can reprogram the system with blood factors.
The jury is out on this until it beats compression bandages (the gold standard) in a head to head trial. I can't remember the name, but a stem cell based wound healing treatment failed spectacularly in recent years when it failed to do better than compression bandaging, despite promising early results.
It does suggest that FL2 is supressed in youth (hence better healing) and as telomeres and Epigentic patterns move the gene becomes active in later life.
As an aging senior female (88) I have experienced accelerated healing of wounds and bone breaks using magnetic pads incorporating triangulation for an increase in gauss level. My healing time was halved (four weeks instead of the eight week norm).