Researchers have just identified a category of skin cells capable of regenerating new skin rather than scar tissue.
- The research team has identified a new category of cells specific to the dermis.
- Genetically modified, these progenitor cells could allow the development of a treatment for regenerating the skin after a serious burn.
Will people who have suffered severe burns and/or burns on a large part of their body soon be able to benefit from a treatment that will improve the healing of their wounds?
This is what a new study published in the journal suggests. Cell Stem Steel. Conducted for five years by the University of Calgary (Canada), this work sheds light on the healing mechanisms of the skin and could lead to a treatment that would regenerate the skin after a burn rather than scar tissue.
Progenitor cells to reprogram
Indeed, people who suffer from severe burns or extensive skin damage often have to live with extreme scarring, deformities, and skin that is chronically tight and itchy. This is because the body’s healing processes have evolved to focus on preventing infection by quickly closing wounds, rather than regenerating or restoring normal skin tissue.
The research team led by Dr. Jeff Biernaskie, professor of stem cell biology at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM), has succeeded in identifying a specific category of progenitor cells residing in the dermis, the deep connective tissue of the skin. “Progenitor cells are unique in that they are able to undergo cell division and generate many new cells to maintain or repair tissues. After injury, these dermal progenitors are activated, proliferate and then migrate into the wound where they generate almost all of the new tissue that will fill the wound, whether scar tissue or regenerated tissue.”explains Jeff Biernaskie.
Using state-of-the-art genomic techniques to profile thousands of individual cells at different times after injury, the research team compared healing and regenerative areas within skin wounds. She then discovered that these cells share the same origin. Those are “different microenvironments within the wound (which) activate entirely different sets of genesexplains Dr. Biernaskie. This means that the signals found in the “regenerative areas” of the wound promote the reactivation of genes that are usually engaged during skin development. Whereas in the healing areas these pro-regeneration programs are absent or suppressed and the healing programs dominate.”
The hope of a skin treatment for severe burns
Based on these results, the researchers then showed that it was possible to modify the genetic programs that govern skin regeneration. “What we have shown is that it is possible to modify the wound environment with drugs or to directly modify the genetics of these progenitor cells, and that both are sufficient to modify their behavior during wound healing. And it can have some really impressive effects on wound healing which includes the regeneration of new hair follicles, new glands and fat in injured skin.”rejoices Jeff Biernaskie.
The researchers now hope to be able to develop a dermal regeneration treatment that could considerably improve the quality of healing of burnt skin.
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