Author: Tina Hesman Saey / Source: Science News
Mouth wounds heal faster than injuries to other parts of the skin, and now scientists are learning how the mouth performs its speedy repairs.
Some master regulators of gene activity work overtime in the mouth to heal wounds without scarring, researchers report July 25 in Science Translational Medicine. Those regulators — proteins known as SOX2, PITX1, PITX2 and PAX9 — are active in skin cells called keratinocytes in the mouth, but not in skin cells from the arm. The regulators hold down inflammation that can lead to scarring and turn on molecular programs involved in cell movement and wound closure, say the researchers, from the University of California, San Diego and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
Small wounds made in arm skin (top row) took more than six days to heal, but wounds in the mouth (bottom row) closed quickly with no…
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