Nicolette Houreld
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Title: Photobiomodulation at 660 nm alters the expression of cell adhesion molecules and extracellular matrix proteins in a diabetic wounded fibroblast cell model
Biography
Biography: Nicolette Houreld
Abstract
Diabetes was declared a global burden by the International Diabetes Federation, with 382 million cases worldwide in 2013. Diabetic foot ulcers require extensive treatment and impacts heavily on patients quality of life. The ulcer recurrence rate over five years is as high as 70% and often necessitate amputation. The use of lasers and light (photobiomodulation) in medicine has made great strides and today photomedicine is practiced in a wide variety of fields, including the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers. Advances in the area of photobiomodulation continues to revolutionize and transform our world and the medical industry. The use of photobiomodulation at 660 nm with 5 J/cm2 on gene profile of 84 genes was investigated by real-time reverse transcription (RT) quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in diabetic wounded skin fibroblast cells (WS1). The expression of various cell adhesion molecules and extracellular matrix proteins was modulated by photobiomodulation; eighteen genes were upregulated, while 31 genes were downregulated. There is a definite need to generate new treatment modalities to improve diabetic wound healing, and photobiomodulation has an unmistakable place in this. It would be ignorant to emasculate a multidisciplinary approach, and photobiomodulation needs to be adequately and critically studied alongside existing treatments in a clinical environment for its benefits to be properly recognized.