Abstract
How stromal cells fill voids in wounded tissue remains one of the most fundamental questions in regenerative medicine. Fibroblasts are known to fill voids by depositing extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins while migrating towards the wound site; however, their ability to adopt an epithelial-like purse-string behaviour remains unexplored. Here, we fabricated an artificial wound with a deep void space to investigate fibroblasts’ behaviour during gap closure. We found that fibroblasts can form a free-standing bridge on deep microvoids and consequently close the void through the purse-string contraction, which was previously believed to be exclusively an epithelial wound closure mechanism.
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