In brief
BPC 157 had been reported to speed healing of transected rat tendon, and this paper asks how. In tendon explants, the peptide accelerated the outgrowth of fibroblasts from the tissue. It did not make cultured tendon fibroblasts proliferate faster, but it did improve their survival under hydrogen-peroxide stress. It increased cell migration across a filter in a dose-dependent way, sped the spreading of cells on the dish and induced F-actin formation. On western blots, phosphorylation of the focal-adhesion proteins FAK and paxillin rose with dose while total protein was unchanged. The authors conclude that BPC 157 promotes tendon healing by encouraging outgrowth, survival and migration through the FAK-paxillin pathway rather than by proliferation.
Study design
Rat Achilles tendon explants and cultured tendon fibroblasts treated with BPC 157; outgrowth, survival, migration and signalling measured.
What it does not show
Explants and cells from rat tendon. There is no intact-animal healing endpoint in this study, and no human tendon data.
Cells in culture are not a tissue and not an organism. Concentrations, exposure times and the absence of circulation, immunity and metabolism mean a dish result says only that the molecule can act on that cell type under those conditions.
Where this paper is cited
- BPC-157 — Rat Achilles tendon fibroblasts in culture: BPC 157 increased outgrowth, survival and migration, via the FAK–paxillin pathway.
Other papers cited for BPC-157
- Review Brain-gut Axis and Pentadecapeptide BPC 157: Theoretical and Practical Implications Sikiric et al. (2016), Curr Neuropharmacol
- Review Stable gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157: novel therapy in gastrointestinal tract Sikiric et al. (2011), Curr Pharm Des
Further reading
- Research library: every paper cited on this site, by compound and by study type.
- Repair and recovery peptide comparison
- How to read a certificate of analysis
- Lyophilised peptide storage and stability
How this page was made: the citation was retrieved from PubMed by PMID and checked against the title on the product page; the summary was written from the paper's abstract and reports only what the abstract reports. Read the paper itself before relying on any figure here.