Objective: To examine the retention and bioactivity of endogenous FGF-2 after prolonged storage within a complex matrix. FGF-2 is a growth factor found in OASIS Wound Matrix, a purified collagen wound-care product containing other endogenous components of the extracellular matrix.
Method: FGF-2 content was measured by ELISA. FGF-2 activity was measured using an in vitro bioassay in rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells.
Results: FGF-2 content ranged from 15.3 ng/g to 84.3 ng/g. The bioassay showed that the FGF-2 retained in the matrix was present in a bioactive form able to cause differentiation of cells in culture.
Conclusion: The results demonstrate that wound-care products can be developed to retain their bioactivity over time and that inherently unstable purified growth factors are preserved if stored as bound factors within their natural extracellular matrix. The results also suggest that use of acellular matrices containing active growth factors would have advantages in terms of simplicity and cost over purified recombinant growth factor therapies.