Harnessing the Natural Healing Power of Colostrum: Bovine Milk-derived Extracellular Vesicles from Colostrum Facilitating the Transition from Inflammation to Tissue Regeneration for Accelerating Cutaneous Wound Healing.

As wound healing is an extremely complicated process, consisting of a cascade of interlocking biological events, successful wound healing requires a multifaceted approach to support appropriate and rapid transitions from the inflammatory to proliferative and remodeling phases. In this regard, here we investigate the potential use of bovine milk extracellular vesicles (EVs) to enhance wound healing. Our results show that milk EVs promote fibroblast proliferation, migration and endothelial tube formation. In particular, milk EVs derived from colostrum (Colos EVs) contain various anti-inflammatory factors facilitating the transition from inflammation to proliferation phase, as well as factors for tissue remodeling and angiogenesis. In an excisional wound mouse model, Colos EVs promote re-epithelialization, activate angiogenesis, and enhance extracellular matrix maturation. Interestingly, Colos EVs are further found to be quite resistant to freeze-drying procedures, maintaining their original characteristics and efficacy for wound repair after lyophilization. These findings on the superior stability and excellent activity of milk EVs derived from colostrum indicate that they hold great promise to be developed as anti-inflammatory therapeutics, especially for the treatment of cutaneous wounds. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.