M.T. Longaker

Scarring and scarless wound healing

Abstract: In contrast to adult wound healing, the early-gestation fetus has the remarkable ability to heal skin wounds without scar formation. Over the past several decades, an intensive research effort has greatly increased our understanding of scarless fetal wound healing. This chapter discusses the differences that exist between the extracellular matrix (ECM), inflammatory response, cellular mediators, stem cell function, and gene expression profiles of fetal and postnatal wounds. This chapter then reviews the currently available treatment options for scars and concludes with a discussion of future trends in scar treatment.

Application of FGF-2 mimics bone healing potential of frontal bones in parietal calvarial defects

Bone defects remain a substantial biomedical burden. The skull is an interesting model to study these defects, since it contains bones of different embryonic origins. The parietal bone is mesodermderived, whereas the frontal bone’s origin is the neural crest. In the latter one, we have previously demonstrated, that higher expression levels of Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) ligands and receptors exist. In our current work, we demonstrate a higher osteogenic healing potential of the frontal bone compared to the parietal bone in vivo and in vitro. In order to further investigate this interesting observation, we tried to mimic the healing potential of the frontal bone by adding exogenous FGF-2 in parietal defects.