A band-aid made of a protein that鈥檚 more common in fetal skin can heal wounds quickly, with no visible scarring.
We know from in utero surgery that fetus skin doesn鈥檛 scar. One reason for this is that it contains scaffolds of a protein called fibronectin that help re-order skin cells after injury.
But skin loses most of this fibronectin by birth. From then on, it re-forms in a haphazard way when it鈥檚 damaged, leaving thick, lumpy scars. at Harvard University and his colleagues wondered if they could restore the seamless healing of fetal skin by coating wounds with fibronectin fibres.
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They synthesised long, fibrous webs of fibronectin protein in the lab, and cut these into circular patches that were 1 centimetre in diameter. They then tested them on eight adult mice that each had two deep wounds on their back.
Scar-less healing
For each mouse, one wound was covered with a fibronectin patch and a protective plastic film, and the other just with plastic film. The fibronectin-treated wounds healed faster and closed by day 11, three days faster than the untreated ones. By day 16, they had no visible scarring and were covered with new fur.
The team analysed the skin that grew back over each wound, scoring it for its microscopic structure, and how many hair follicles, oil glands and fat cells it had. They found that the fibronectin-treated skin was 84 per cent similar to normal skin, while the untreated skin was only a 56 per cent match.
Previous studies have found that fibronectin promotes cell growth and migration and supports collagen, which is the one of the聽main structural proteins in skin. The fibronectin patches may have mimicked this effect and allowed the skin to grow back in a more orderly way.
It鈥檚 still unclear why our skin loses its capacity for scar-less healing after birth, says Chantre. The team is now planning to test the patches in pigs,聽which have skin that is more like our own.
Biomaterials
