A fruit fly’s wing offers clues into how wounds heal

How long it takes for cells to close a fruit fly wound could tell us a lot about the healing process in early developmental stages in humans, and potentially treatments that prevent long-term damage.

for a the study I was published as a letter. Physical Review Researcha research team led by Professor Corey O’Hearn previously published. Experimental data to prepare Computer simulation To describe how cells respond to wounding in fruit fly wings at embryonic and larval stages.

In both phases, extracellular matrix forms around the wound, and then contracts—pulling the cells like a purse string to close the wound. It turns out that I Embryonic stageAlthough, Wound healing It happens much faster than the later stages.

“What we saw is that the wound closes very quickly in the early growth phase,” said O’Hern, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, physics and applied physics.

Researchers believe this shorter reaction time has a life-saving effect. That is, a wound that does not heal long enough in the early stages can lead to major problems later in development.

“Prolonged delays in wound healing can cause developmental delays and dysmorphic features. The tissue Changes, he said. “Whereas in later stages of development, the organism may be able to tolerate the injury longer and still develop normally.”

But the rapid healing process comes at a price. The researchers compared the states of the healing tissues in the embryonic and larval stages, and found that the cells in the early, embryonic stage are more elongated, leading to the filling of flower-shaped wounds.

“When the purse strings close quickly, the cells have to stretch,” O’Hern said. “The cells are all attached to the edges of the purse string, so when the purse string shrinks and closes the wound, the cells must be pulled.”

Also draw during cells. Healing processes In the larval stages, but with more time to do so, they can relax back into their original forms.

The key to this discovery was the computer model that the researchers developed for the study. Most computer models of epithelial tissues—the outer regions of organs—treat the tissue as a single entity. The O’Hern team’s model views tissue as a collection of individual, degenerating cells.

“So with our new model we can ask, ‘How rigid is each cell? How mobile is each cell? And what is the shape of each cell?’—all independent of other cells. Earlier models treated epithelial tissue as a It is understood as an object. Each cell is strongly connected to all other cells.”

This new research leads to new questions. For example, researchers don’t know the specific microscopic mechanism that causes cells to return to their original injured forms.

Additional research may identify the chemical signaling processes and associated biophysical mechanisms that trigger cell shape relaxation.

O’Hern said further research in this area could lead to the development of a drug or other stimulus that would help human fetal cells return to their original shapes in response to injury, as they would later. , which will have important implications. Potentially treat congenital disorders.