859 Use of plant derived-growth factors to improve skin condition

Abstract

Growth factors (GFs) are essential for skin regeneration, stimulating differentiation, growth and migration of keratinocytes and fibroblasts and synthesis of extracelluar matrix. We present the improvement of skin conditions after application of GFs obtained through the unique process of transient expression in N. benthamiana. The adult plant is transfected with a vector containing the protein synthetic transcript, identical to the human gene, and then high purity proteins are expressed by the plant. This system avoids the use of animal or bacterial cells to produce the protein and warrants rapid and reproducible production of non-GMO GFs for their use in cosmetics and medicine. Plant derived-GFs are identical to the human ones and were showed in our studies to restore and improve skin condition. Plant-Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (plant-IGF1) increased keratinocytes growth (58%, p≤0.01) and wound regeneration (81%). Furthermore, we obtained a ground-breaking result showing the activation of chymotrypsin-like detoxifying activity of the proteasome in primary human dermal fibroblasts (54%, p≤0.001) decreasing UVB-induced protein carbonylation (66%, p≤0.001) as a consequence. Plant-IGF1 also increased cytokeratin 14 expression (68%, p≤0.001) and augmented epidermal thickness (33%, p≤0.001) in human skin explants. Finally, it improved skin conditions in vivo, decreasing the melanin content and reducing the number, depth and volume of wrinkles in the undereye area. Plant-Epidermal Growth Factor (plant-EGF) was demonstrated to regenerate by 100% the 1mm wounds in vitro and to increase the levels of hyaluronic acid secreted by primary human keratinocytes (41%, p≤0.01). It also increased the content of young (123%) and mature (26%) collagen, as well as elastin (45%, p≤0.05) in human skin explants. Plant-EGF improved skin appearance in vivo reducing the volume (up to 39%), depth (up to 32%) and number of face wrinkles (11%), reducing the skin roughness (12%) and increasing skin elasticity (13%, p≤0.01).