New insights into the roles of myofibroblasts and innervation during skin healing and innovative therapies to improve scar innervation.

During the resolution phase of normal skin wound healing, there is a considerable loss of various cell types, including myofibroblasts by apoptosis. Inappropriate delay of apoptosis, and thus increased survival of myofibroblasts, may be a factor leading to pathologies and excessive scarring. Considerable data now clearly suggest that innervation plays a major role in wound healing, including the modulation of fibroblast cellular activity.

Effects of small-fiber neuropathy induced by resiniferatoxin on skin healing and axonal regrowth after burn.

Background: Damage to the peripheral nervous system influences wound healing and, after a deep burn, imperfect cutaneous nerve regeneration occurs. A third-degree burn model was developed in rats combined with the use of resiniferatoxin (RTX), known to promote sensory neuropathy.

Methods: Rats were injected intraperitoneally either with RTX or vehicle.

Biotechnological Management of Skin Burn Injuries: Challenges and Perspectives in Wound Healing and Sensory Recovery.

Many wound management protocols have been developed to improve wound healing after burn with the primordial aim to restore the barrier function of the skin and also provide a better esthetic outcome. Autologous skin grafts remain the gold standard in the treatment of skin burn, but this treatment has its limitation especially for patients presenting limited donor sites due to extensive burn areas. Deep burn injuries also alter the integrity of skin-sensitive innervation and have an impact on patient's quality of life by compromising perceptions of touch, temperature, and pain.

Skin innervation: important roles during normal and pathological cutaneous repair.

The skin is a highly sensitive organ. It is densely innervated with different types of sensory nerve endings, which discriminate between pain, temperature and touch. Autonomic nerve fibres which completely derive from sympathetic (cholinergic) neurons are also present.

Fibroblasts and myofibroblasts in wound healing.

(Myo)fibroblasts are key players for maintaining skin homeostasis and for orchestrating physiological tissue repair. (Myo)fibroblasts are embedded in a sophisticated extracellular matrix (ECM) that they secrete, and a complex and interactive dialogue exists between (myo)fibroblasts and their microenvironment. In addition to the secretion of the ECM, (myo)fibroblasts, by secreting matrix metalloproteinases and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases, are able to remodel this ECM.