Epidermal wound healing: the clinical implications of a simple mathematical model.

The role of biochemical regulation in the healing of epidermal wounds remains the subject of much biological debate. We have previously developed a mathematical model which focuses on the role of mitogenic autoregulation in reepithelialization (23-25). Here, we discuss some predictions of our model and their clinical relevance. We investigate both the effects of adding mitotic regulators to healing wounds and the dependence of healing time on wound shape. The latter study suggests a possible mechanism for the control of changes in wound shape during healing. The predictions we make are amenable to experimental verification, and suggest new ideas for experimental research.