science update

[Guest guest]

So

we hope...

J. Pedersen DC

Master Wound Healing Gene Found

Could lead to insights into tissue

regeneration and cancer

Betterhumans Staff

4/15/2005 4:07 PM

Credit:

Benoit Beauregard

Damage control: The

discovery of a master gene that initiates skin repair could lead to

insights into wound healing and cancer

A master gene

that activates wound healing in insects and mammals has been

discovered, a finding that could lead to new insights into tissue

regeneration and cancer.

Mace and colleagues from the University

of California, San Diego

found that the master gene, grainyhead, activates wound repair genes in

cells surrounding injuries in the outer layer of fly embryos.

Meanwhile,

researchers led by Jane at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in

Australia have found that while the outer layer of insects and

mammalian skin are chemically different, grainyhead is also essential

for normal skin development and wound repair in mice.

"One

would envisage that maybe, not too far away, that after an operation

that there's a cream or substance that's applied around the wound to

stimulate the cells to migrate together to form a nice seamless

connection whereby the wound heals without scar," Jane said in an

interview.

Permeable skin

Mace

and colleagues made their discovery by creating wounds in flies and

analyzing DNA sequences to determine that grainyhead initiates repair.

They also found that in flies lacking grainyhead, wounds failed to

heal.

In

their study, Jane and colleagues found that mice lacking grainyhead

have more permeable skin than normal mice and have deficient wound

repair.

Such

a conserved genetic mechanism for wound repair is considered an

important find. Little is known about such things as how wound repair

is halted when injuries are healed. Nor is it well understood how

cancer cells evade this stop program.

"The

discovery that grainyhead-like factors are required for the response to

injury opens up new avenues of research in the field of wound healing,"

says Mace. "It also opens new avenues for cancer research, since many

cancer cells activate genes normally involved in wound healing in order

to kick start processes such as cell division and cell migration."

Both studies are reported in the journal Science.