Nonhealing wounds with various forms of complications have been a major challenge for patients with different diseases, and few data are available regarding the clinical significance of platelet-derived growth factor-AA (PDGF-AA) in the enhanced wound healing with stem cells, and the precise molecular mechanism remains unclear. The study aims to investigate the role of PDGF-AA in adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) enhancing wound healing. In this study, ASCs and EPCs were applied to treat wounds in an animal wound model with a wound-healing assay. We knocked down PDGF-AA expression in ASCs using the PDGF-AA short hairpin RNA technique and investigated the related molecular mechanism. The wound model and wound-healing assay of the study showed that transplantation of ASCs could enhance wound healing. The results showed that the PDGF-AA knockdown ASC group had much less improvement of wound healing than other groups treated with wild-type ASCs in wound tissues. The regulation of PDGF-AA in ASCs may contribute to improve wound healing through the PI3K/Akt/eNOS signaling pathway. The data indicated that PDGF-AA might play a vital role in ASCs and EPCs enhancing wound healing, possibly by its effects on angiogenesis. It would be a potential approach using PDGF-AA for clinical treatment of chronic wounds.-Wu, L.-W., Chen, W.-L., Huang, S.-M., Chan, J. Y.-H. Platelet-derived growth factor AA is a substantial factor in the ability of adipose-derived stem cells and endothelial progenitor cells to enhance wound healing.
Keywords: PDGF; angiogenesis; growth factor; mesenchymal stem cells; nitric oxide.