Fibrin Microbeads (FMB) As Biodegradable Carriers for Culturing Cells and for Accelerating Wound Healing

Fibrinogen exerts adhesive effects on cultured fibroblasts and other cells. Specifically, fibrin(ogen) and its various lytic fragments (e.g., FPA, FPB, fragments D and E) were shown to be chemotactic to macrophages, human fibroblasts, and endothelial cells (1 –3 ). Thrombin has also been shown to exert proliferative and adhesive effects on cultured cells (4 –7 ). We previously demonstrated that covalently coating inert Sepharose beads with either fibrinogen or thrombin rendered them adhesive to a wide range of cell types. We employed such coated Sepharose beads to screen or rank normal and transformed cells for their haptotactic responses to fibrinogen (8 ,9 ).