Skin Memory
The skin was found to have a "memory" of healed wounds and inflammations
Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science
Wounds, diseases and other skin injuries trigger inflammatory reactions and a number of mechanisms necessary for recovery. Scientists from Rockefeller University, working under the leadership of a well-known expert in the field of cell biology Elaine Fuchs, managed to show that skin stem cells retain the "memory" of past inflammations, which allows them to heal damage faster in the future. The researchers' article (Naik et al., Inflammatory memory sensitizes skin epithelial stem cells to tissue damage) was published in the journal Nature, a press release briefly tells about it Rockefeller University Inflammation trains the skin to heal faster.
Stem cells (green) migrate into a three-day wound,
to restore it (Rockefeller University) – VM.
Scientists conducted experiments with laboratory mice, finding that their wounds heal more than twice as fast in those areas of the skin that were already damaged earlier and healed more than six months ago (taking into account the short life span of animals, this period can be compared with 15 years for humans). More detailed experiments have shown that it is due to the increased activity of stem cells, which, "trained" by past trauma, migrate noticeably faster to the damage and restore it.
The authors found out that the first damage makes certain stem cell genes more sensitive to signals coming from tissue damage, which allows them to get involved in work faster. Among these genes, it is worth mentioning aim2, the protein product of which is activated in the presence of damaged DNA and plays an important role in triggering inflammation.
Interestingly, an increased level of the AIM2 protein is noted in patients with psoriasis. In this regard, Elaina Fuchs and her co-authors suggest that the "memory" of skin stem cells may play a role in the development of such diseases, just as failures in the "memory" of immunity can trigger chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases.
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