Procellera – the world’s first wireless microcurrent generating dressing that produces electrical fields through its matrix of microcell batteries – was found to significantly enhance cell migration in in-vitro laboratory testing, according to groundbreaking research led by The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center Professor Chandan K. Sen. Professor Sen is also the Director of the Comprehensive Wound Center at Ohio State.
The results were published yesterday in the international peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLOS ONE.
“The investigation at a cellular level is a first for Procellera technology,” said Michael Nagel, President and CEO of Vomaris.
“This rigorous study by a highly respected team at OSU provides unprecedented scientific evidence underpinning the better outcomes and reduced healing times demonstrated in our clinical efficacy outcome studies in animal and human populations,” Nagel explained. “Understanding the mechanism of action behind Procellera technology will certainly open doors for future expanded applications in using wireless microcurrents to potentially treat other diseases.”
Sen’s team studied the effects of Procellera technology in several in-vitro tests designed to better understand its mechanism of action and uncovered evidence of significantly increased keratinocyte migration (a critical event in wound re-epithelialization), compared to controls.
“This work provides fundamental characterization of a whole new generation of wound care dressing technology that is likely to have imminent cost-effective impact in patients,” Sen said. “The substantial potential of bioelectriceuticals in wound care has been unveiled through hard core interdisciplinary mechanistic science.”
The team identified several mechanisms behind this finding, including generation of hydrogen peroxide, a potent driver of redox signaling; phosphorylation of redox-sensitive IGF1R directly implicated in cell migration; and reduction of protein thiols and increase in integrin expression, both of which are known to be essential drivers of intracellular and extracellular communication.
Researchers also discovered that Procellera technology increased keratinocyte mitochondrial membrane potential, essentially “energizing” the mitochondria through its electrical fields to improve its cell motility capacity, due to its ability to “communicate” with keratinocytes via redox-dependent processes improving keratinocyte migration.
Co-authors of the study include Jaideep Banerjee, Piya Das Ghatak, Sashwati Roy, PhD, Savita Khanna, PhD, Emily K. Sequin, Karen Bellman, Bryan Dickinson, Prerna Suri, Vish Subramaniam, PhD, and Christopher Chang, PhD.
This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health: GM 79465 and GM 069589.