Fibrin sealant prepared from the blood of farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) represents a potential source of well-controlled natural material with utility in a variety of clinical settings. A potential advantage of this material is a lower probability of viral or
bacterial infection that has limited general approval of
fibrin glues made from human or bovine
proteins. This report describes the purification of
fibrinogen from salmon blood, the use of
fibrin glues derived from this material to promote wound healing in rats, and the antigenic response to this material. While the low ambient temperature of these cold water fish significantly lessens the probability of infectious transmission to humans,
fibrinogen and
factor XIII derived from S. salar are activated by human
thrombin at 25 degrees C and 37 degrees C to form clots equivalent to those formed by human
fibrin. We compare the reactivity of salmon and human
fibrinogen with human and bovine
thrombin and the structure and viscoelastic properties of the resulting
fibrin gels over a range of pH and
salt concentrations. The efficacy of salmon
fibrin glues in a wound healing assay and the low antigenic response to salmon
fibrinogen suggest that this material may substitute for
proteins derived from mammalian sources with lower probability of
infections.