Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that extracorporeal shock wave therapy has a significant positive effect on accelerating diabetic wound healing. However, the systemic effect after therapy is still unclear.
Methods: This study investigated the plasma protein expression in the extracorporeal shock wave therapy group and diabetic controls using proteomic study. A dorsal skin defect (6 × 5 cm) in a streptozotocin-induced diabetic Wistar rat model was used. Diabetic rats receiving either no therapy or extracorporeal shock wave therapy after wounding were analyzed. The spots of interest were subjected to in-gel trypsin digestion and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry to elucidate the peptide mass fingerprints. The mass spectrometric characteristics of the identified proteins, including their theoretical isoelectric points, molecular weights, sequence coverage, and Mascot score, were analyzed. Protein expression was validated using immunohistochemical analysis of topical periwounding tissues.
Results: The proteomic study revealed that at days 3 and 10 after therapy rats had significantly higher abundance of haptoglobin and significantly lower levels of the vitamin D-binding protein precursor as compared with the diabetic controls. Immunohistochemical staining of topical periwounding tissue also revealed significant upregulation of haptoglobin and downregulation of vitamin D-binding protein expression in the extracorporeal shock wave therapy group, which was consistent with the systemic proteome study.
Conclusion: Proteome analyses demonstrated an upregulation of haptoglobin and a downregulation of vitamin D-binding protein in extracorporeal shock wave therapy-enhanced diabetic wound healing.