A better understanding of the scarring process

24/10/2024

Belgian researchers discover how the scarring process takes place under our skin.

Professor Cédric Blanpain and his team from the Laboratory of Stem Cells & Cancer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) have made an important discovery that opens up new prospects for treating chronic skin wounds such as bedsores and improving the healing and regeneration of other tissues. 

Their study, published in the prestigious journal Cell, is based on the real-time microscopic observation of healing tissue. The Belgian researchers then made the astonishing discovery that stem cells move from a solid state to a liquid state and back to a solid state, enabling healing. 

As Professor Blanpain explains, "When you think of a tissue, everyone - including me before doing this study - thinks of something solid. We worked with physicists, who were interested in what dictates transitions between different physical states: solid, liquid and gas. Looking at the mechanisms that occur during skin healing, we realised that these cells exist in a state that looks much more like a liquid than a solid to a physicist. They were in a more or less liquid state, a kind of gel." This dynamic change from solid to liquid and back again had never been demonstrated before! 

The Belgian researchers were then able to observe what, at the genetic level, regulated the transition of skin stem cells between the liquid and solid states. And with the help of drugs, they then inhibited the genes involved in skin healing to keep the cells in a fluid state, in which they move without constraint. According to the researchers, this experiment could offer solutions for the healing of chronic wounds, as "using drugs that already exist, we could try to fluidify the wound to allow the cells to disperse for better skin repair. Another possibility is to take a drug that would activate the return of stem cells to a solid state after fluidification," adds the ULB professor. 

This new Belgian discovery could lead to major medical advances!