wound repair

Damage to any tissue triggers a cascade of events that leads to rapid repair of the wound - if the tissue is skin, then repair involves re-epithelialization, formation of granulation tissue and contraction of underlying wound connective tissues.

This concerted effort by the wounded cell layers is accompanied by, and might also be partially regulated by, a robust inflammatory response, in which first neutrophils and then macrophages and mast cells emigrate from nearby tissues and from the circulation.

Clearly, this inflammatory response is crucial for fighting infection and must have been selected for during the course of evolution so that tissue damage did not inevitably lead to death through septicemia.

Video

 stab wound response

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 wound healing

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 wound healing

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 lymphocyte homing to a wounded area

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References

 Martin P, Leibovich SJ. Inflammatory cells during wound repair: the good, the bad and the ugly. Trends Cell Biol. 2005 Nov;15(11):599-607. PMID: 16202600

 McGowan K, Coulombe PA. The wound repair-associated keratins 6, 16, and 17. Insights into the role of intermediate filaments in specifying keratinocyte cytoarchitecture. Subcell Biochem. 1998;31:173-204. PMID: 9932493