Augmentation of wound healing with translation initiation factor eIF4E mRNA

Background. Initiation of translation is the rate-limiting step in protein synthesis; eIF4E increases translational efficiency by facilitating ribosome scanning. eIF4E is present in cells in rate-limiting amounts; chronic overexpression. of eIF4E causes cell transformation by upregulating growth-related proteins. Biolistic delivery of epidermal growth factor (EGF) increases wound healing; transiently increasing wound eIF4E levels with biolistic mRNA transmission may further augment wound healing without oncogenesis. Patients and methods. Midline fascial wounds were created in rats and biolistically treated with gold particles carrying mRNA encoding for hEGF with or without eIF4E prior to suture closure; control animals received blank bullets. The animals were sacrificed at 7 or 14 days for determination of peak wound bursting strength on a tensiometer. Results are expressed as means +/- standard deviation; statistics were via analysis of variance. Results. [GRAPHICS] Conclusions. Simultaneous biolistic delivery of EGF mRNA with eIF4E mRNA significantly increases wound breaking strength compared to that in control animals or treatment with EGF mRNA alone without risk of cellular transformation. Further studies of translational activation to augment wound healing are warranted. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).