The researchers were able to reduce the scars by blocking part of the healing process. The animal study could make a difference for burns and other trauma patients.
Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani from the University of Queensland said scars were reduced by targeting the gene that instructs stem cells to form them.
The body's natural response to trauma is to create many blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to the wound to repair it
Kiarash Khosrotehrani, University of Queensland
How scars form (and stop)
Once the wound has closed, many of the blood vessels created by the body to respond to the wound emergency become fibroblasts. These produce collagens that form the hard materials found in scars.
“We found,” says Khosrotehrani, “that vascular stem cells determine whether a blood vessel remains or is transformed into fibroblasts that give rise to scars.”
The experimental dermatology team then identified the molecular mechanism for deactivating the process by targeting a specific gene involved in scar formation known as SOX9.
The team used technology siRNA or “short interfering RNA” to block SOX9 RNA expression and this reduced scarring in the animals.
The potential applications of the discovery
After the success of the animal research phase (here the official news) serves passage on humans. If the results are confirmed, their potential application would have clear benefits for many patients, from those who have undergone knee or hip surgery, to removed melanomas, through to burn victims.
The classic situation where there are a lot of scars is that of burns. There the wound healed but large scars remain. Now that we have found the molecular drivers of the scars we can think of a treatment.
Kiarash Khosrotehrani
Pending further evidence, it must be said, the Queensland team believes this application will not be difficult to apply to human patients.
