A new article published in Nature Communications discussed that matrix deposition is essential for wound repair. However, excessive deposition leads to hypertrophic scars and fibrosis.

The authors elaborated that factors that control matrix deposition in skin wounds have only partially been identified and the consequences of matrix alterations for the mechanical properties of wounds are largely unknown.

This article reported that a single diffusible factor – activin A, affects the healing process across scales. Bioinformatics analysis of wound fibroblast transcriptome data combined with biochemical and histopathological analyses of wounds and functional in vitro studies identify that activin promotes pro-fibrotic gene expression signatures and processes—including glycoprotein and proteoglycan biosynthesis, collagen deposition and altered collagen cross-linking. Therefore, activin strongly reduces the wound and scar deformability.

The observations provide mechanistic insight into the roles of activin in wound repair and fibrosis and identify the functional consequences of alterations in the wound matrisome at the biomechanical level.

Source: Nature Communications. 2020 May 25;11(1):2604. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16409-z.