Collagen peptides can promote wound healing and are closely related to microbiome colonization. We investigated the relationship among collagen peptides, wound healing, and wound microflora colonization by administering the murine wound model with Salmo salar skin collagen peptides (Ss-SCPs) and Tilapia nilotica skin collagen peptides (Tn-SCPs). We analyzed the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factors (β-FGF), pattern recognition receptor (NOD2), antimicrobial peptides (β-defence14, BD14), proinflammatory (TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8) and anti-inflammatory (IL-10) cytokines, macrophages, neutrophil infiltration levels, and microbial communities in the rat wound. The healing rates of the Ss-SCP- and Tn-SCP-treated groups were significantly accelerated, associated with decreased TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8 and upregulated BD14, NOD2, IL-10, VEGF, and β-FGF. Accelerated healing in the collagen peptide group shows that the wound microflora such as Leuconostoc, Enterococcus, and Bacillus have a positive effect on wound healing (P < 0.01). Other microbiome species such as Stenotrophomonas, Bradyrhizobium, Sphingomonas, and Phyllobacterium had a negative influence and decreased colonization (P < 0.01). Altogether, these studies show that collagen peptide could upregulate wound NOD2 and BD14, which were implicated in microflora colonization regulation in the wound tissue and promoted wound healing by controlling the inflammatory reaction and increasing wound angiogenesis and collagen deposition.
Keywords: angiogenesis; fish skin collagen peptide; inflammatory reaction; skin microbiome colonization; wound healing.