Scar–free healing: from embryonic mechanisms to adult therapeutic intervention

In man and domestic animals, scarring in the skin after trauma, surgery, burn or sports injury is a major medical problem, often resulting in adverse aesthetics, loss of function, restriction of tissue movement and/or growth and adverse psychological effects. Current treatments are empirical, unreliable and unpredictable: there are no prescription drugs for the prevention or treatment of dermal scarring. Skin wounds on early mammalian embryos heal perfectly with no scars whereas wounds to adult mammals scar. We investigated the cellular and molecular differences between scar-free healing in embryonic wounds and scar-forming healing in adult wounds. Important differences include the inflammatory response, which…