A short peptide from rice (AmyI-1-18) and a tweaked version called [N3L]AmyI-1-18 can make human blood‑vessel cells grow, form new blood‑vessel‑like structures, and move faster in lab dishes, similar to the human peptide LL‑37. This suggests they might help heal wounds, but the work is still only in cell cultures.

In our previous studies, we showed that AmyI-1-18 and its single amino acid-substituted analogs have antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-endotoxic activities and cause little or no hemolysis or cytotoxicity. In this study, we investigated the potential of these peptides to promote proliferation, angiogenesis (tube formation), and migration in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Among five single amino acid-substituted analogs, [N3L]AmyI-1-18 induced cell proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner with similar efficacy to AmyI-1-18. In tube formation assays, AmyI-1-18 and [N3L]AmyI-1-18 had angiogenic activities at 1 μM and their effects were similar to those of LL-37. Moreover, scratch migration assays showed that AmyI-1-18, [N3L]AmyI-1-18, and LL-37 promote cell migration with optimum concentrations of 10, 1, and 0.1 μM, respectively. Subsequently, we performed tube formation assays using HUVECs pretreated with SU5416, which is an inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors, and revealed that AmyI-1-18 and [N3L]AmyI-1-18 induce angiogenesis by activating VEGF receptors. Similarly, after pretreating HUVECs with mitomycin C, which inhibits cell proliferation, [N3L]AmyI-1-18 significantly contributed to wound closure in scratch migration assays. Moreover, enhancements of hydrophobicity following substitution of AmyI-1-18 asparagine with leucine led to greater increases in cell migration. The present data indicate that both peptides, particularly [N3L]AmyI-1-18, are candidates for use as wound healing agents.