Abstract
M.Tech.
The rising number of non-traumatic lower limb amputation and premature death in diabetic patients due to chronic wounds has caused a significant demand for effective and safe treatment modalities. These chronic wounds are known for their poor response to treatment (Järbrink et al., 2017). Chronic wounds are associated with impaired cellular function, including decreased cellular migration and proliferation and a lack of synthesis of growth factors and collagen (Houreld, 2014). The growth and repair of tissue following injury involves a series of cellular and molecular activities aimed at restoring the damaged tissue. Growth factors and cytokines are the main players in the regulation and redirection of the process of wound healing. These growth factors include members of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family e.g., basic FGF (bFGF) and acidic FGF (aFGF). It is well known that the levels of various growth factors are deficient in diabetic wounds due to their limited production and accelerated destruction. FGF functions by binding to and interacting with their signalling receptor, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR), in the presence of heparan sulphate (HS) as a cofactor resulting in the formation of a ternary FGF-FGFR-HS complex. This activates the FGFR intracellular tyrosine kinase domain by phosphorylation of tyrosine residues. FGFR is linked to several intracellular signalling pathways including the Ras/MAPK, STAT, (PLCγ) and PI3K/AKT pathways (Ornitz and Itoh, 2015). The Ras/MAPK pathway is one of the most studied and best characterised signal transduction pathways in cell biology. It plays a key role in transducing extracellular signals to the nucleus where genes for cell growth, division, and differentiation are activated. Photobiomodulation (PBM) involves the application of low-powered light in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) spectral range which gets absorbed by chromophores to induce physiological changes and provide therapeutic benefit. PBM therapy (PBMT) is based on the principles of PBM (Anders et al., 2019). The mechanism of stimulating biological systems using photon energy (light) depends on the absorption of non-ionising optical radiation, typically in the visible red and...