Figure 9.

P15-1 reduces wound contraction and smooth muscle actin in day 5 wounds. A: Full-thickness excisional wounds were treated with collagen vehicle alone or collagen vehicle plus P15-1 peptide. Wounds were harvested at day 5 post injury, and cross sections were stained with smooth muscle actin–specific Ab. A: Panel depicts representative images of collagen vehicle–treated control wounds and P15-1 in collagen vehicle–treated wounds. Smooth muscle actin staining was reduced in P15-1–treated wounds. B: Wound contraction was reduced in P15-1–treated wounds at day 5 after wounding. Full-thickness excisional wounds were either treated with collagen vehicle plus P15-1, collagen vehicle plus scrambled control peptide, or left untreated. Wound contraction was measured by tracing wound edges on days 3, 5, and 7 after wounding and quantification of the wound area by image analysis. The graph depicts percentage wound contraction. n = 6 wounds/treatment. C: P15-1 inhibits collagen gel contraction in culture. Collagen I gel contraction by human foreskin fibroblasts was analyzed as described in Materials and Methods. Graph depicts the gel area ± SD of n = 4 replicates/experiment. *P < 0.01.