Liu W, Wang D R, Cao Y L
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai Institute of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai, P.R. China.
Curr Gene Ther. 2004 Mar;4(1):123-36. doi: 10.2174/1566523044578004.
Hypertrophic scar and keloid are common and difficult to treat diseases in plastic surgery. Results of wound healing research over the past decades have demonstrated that transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) plays an essential role in cutaneous scar formation. In contrast, fetal wounds, which heal without scarring, contain a lower level of TGF-beta than adult wounds. How to translate the discovery of basic scientific research into the clinical treatment of wound scarring has become an important issue to both clinicians and basic researchers. The development of gene therapy techniques offers the potential to genetically modify adult wound healing to a healing process similar to fetal wounds, and thus reduces wound scarring. This article intends to review the roles of TGF-beta in the formation of wound scarring, the possible strategies of antagonizing wound TGF-beta, and our preliminary results of scar gene therapy, which show that wound scarring can be significantly reduced by targeting wound TGF-beta.
增生性瘢痕和瘢痕疙瘩是整形外科常见且难以治疗的疾病。过去几十年的伤口愈合研究结果表明，转化生长因子-β（TGF-β）在皮肤瘢痕形成中起重要作用。相比之下，胎儿伤口愈合时不会形成瘢痕，其TGF-β水平低于成人伤口。如何将基础科学研究的发现转化为伤口瘢痕的临床治疗方法，已成为临床医生和基础研究人员共同面临的重要问题。基因治疗技术的发展为将成人伤口愈合过程基因改造为类似于胎儿伤口的愈合过程提供了可能，从而减少伤口瘢痕形成。本文旨在综述TGF-β在伤口瘢痕形成中的作用、拮抗伤口TGF-β的可能策略以及我们瘢痕基因治疗的初步结果，这些结果表明，通过靶向伤口TGF-β可显著减少伤口瘢痕形成。
