Altered proteins boost healing

摘要

Adding a protein 'tail' to molecules that drive cell replication and tissue repair could improve wound-healing treatments. Most growth factors used in the clinic do not stimulate healing well in humans, possibly because they do not bind tightly to the proteins that make up the matrix between cells. Jeffrey Hubbell at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his colleagues discovered that one growth factor, P1GF-2, has an amino-acid tail that lets the protein bind to the extracellular matrix.