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Skin forms ‘suspension bridges’ for wound healing

By 4 de December de 2013November 18th, 2020No Comments
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Image: Barcelona's Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC).
 04.12.2013

Skin forms ‘suspension bridges’ for wound healing

A study of researches at Barcelona's Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) –based in the Parc Científic de Barcelona– and their colleagues at the Mechanobiology Institute of the National University of Singapore demonstrates how layers of human keratinocytes (outer skin cells) form structures not unlike suspension bridges over wounds to help the healing process. new avenues for tissue engineering of skin. The paper, published in Nature Materials (doi:10.1038/nmat3814), opens new avenues for tissue engineering of skin.


Scientists used microfabricated technology – miniature structures at micrometer scales – to look at how skin cells migrate to fix gaps or wounds. They showed that these regions, which have no extracellular matrix support and thus are not conducive for cell adhesion, which is essential for cell movement, are spanned by suspended multicellular “bridges” formed by layers of keratinocytes. Migrating skin cells are then able to continue to march forward as a united and homogenous group to form a protective barrier over the wound.

“These bridges are a brand new discovery. It was previously thought that this process of re-epithelialization – the restoration of skin on a wound or burn – required a ‘foothold’ for the cell sheets to successively migrate,” explains Xavier Trepat, group leader at IBEC. “Instead, it appears that the cells do something akin to slinging a rope or a bridge over the gap to then move across it.”

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