6 Mechanisms of Wound Healing in the Embryo and Fetus

Abstract

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses the vertebrate embryonic wound healing as a model for tissue movements during morphogenesis and as a counterpart to adult wound healing. Embryonic wound healing offers a new model for developmental biologists interested in the cellular machinery, used by the embryo to undergo the natural tissue movements of morphogenesis, such as gastrulation and neurulation. By studying the cascade of events initiated, by wounding and leading to wound closure, it should be possible to elucidate the general mechanisms that regulate natural cell and tissue movements in the embryo. In most adult wounds, both neutrophils and monocytes will be attracted to the site of injury, by a variety of chemotactic factors, including fibrin, matrix degradation products, formyl methionyl peptides released, by bacteria and also by some of the growth factors described above that would have been released at the wound site, by degranulating platelets. To allow the comparison of mechanisms of embryonic wound healing with wound healing in the adult, the phases and key players of adult healing are described in the chapter. This chapter discusses the movements of reepithelialization and contraction of the wound granulation tissue, since one wants to draw parallels with these two tissue movements in the later discussion of embryonic healing. Similarly, this chapter discusses the adult inflammatory response, as it contrasts, with the lack of inflammation during the embryonic repair process.