A non-anticoagulant heparin-like snail glycosaminoglycan promotes healing of diabetic wound. (1st November 2020) - Wu, Yuebo
Highlights: A unique glycosaminoglycan (SGAG) was purified from the cultured snail. SGAG is a structural regular GAG without anticoagulant activity. SGAG accelerated the healing of full-thickness wounds in diabetic mice. SGAG alleviated the inflammation and dermal edema in early stage and promoted angiogenesis. Abstract: Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is a common high-risk complication in patients with diabetes mellitus, but current drugs and therapies in management of this disease cannot meet the urgent clinical needs. In this study, a snail glycosaminoglycan (SGAG) from the cultured China white jade snail was purified and structurally clarified. This snail glycosaminoglycan is a regular sulfated polysaccharide, composed of iduronic acid (IdoA) and N-acetyl-glucosamine (GlcNAc) with the repeating sequence of →4)-α-GlcNAc (1→4)-α-IdoA2S (1→. The biological assays showed that SGAG had no anticoagulant activity for lacking speciﬁc heparin pentasaccharide sequence. The pharmacological experiments suggested that SGAG markedly accelerated the healing of full-thickness wounds in diabetic mice skin. Histologic and immunohistochemical analysis revealed that SGAG treatment alleviated the inflammation and dermal edema, and promoted angiogenesis. This is the first report applying the snail glycosaminoglycan to favor diabetic wound healing.