A lot of people have scars after they’ve healed from some injury or surgical procedure and sometimes they can be rather unsightly to look at. Up until just recently, there hasn’t really been much that could help regarding rejuvenating the skin to make it look like it did before. Myofibroblasts are the most common type of cell that makes up scar tissue and are there to help form the scar. Scar tissue looks different to normal skin as there are no fat cells or hair follicles contained within it. But now, scientists have worked out how to heal wounds with normal skin rather than with scar tissue.
A new study conducted confirmed that by stimulating the growth of hair follicles in the scar tissue, it caused the skin to release Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) as a byproduct. The BMP initiated the myofibroblasts to turn into adipocytes, which meant that no scar tissue would develop. The leader of the study, Dr. George Cotsarelis of the University of Pennsylvania, says, “The secret is to regenerate hair follicles first. After that, the fat will regenerate in response to the signals from those follicles.”
Lead author of the study and assistant professor of Developmental and Cell Biology at the University of California, Maksim Plikus, said, “The findings show we have a window of opportunity after wounding to influence the tissue to regenerate rather than scar.” This is revolutionary news for scar therapy and brings hope and promise to a large number of people who have to suffer from scars every day.
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