Researchers unlock the mysteries of how cells rush to a wound and heal it
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
A multidisciplinary research team has discovered how cells know to rush to a wound and heal it — opening the door to new treatments for diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The findings shed light on the mechanisms of cell migration, particularly in the wound-healing process. The results represent a major advancement for regenerative medicine, in which biomedical engineers and other researchers manipulate cells’ form and function to create new tissues, and even organs, to repair, restore or replace those damaged by injury or disease.
The answer, it turns out, involves delicate interactions between biomechanical stress, or force, which living cells exert on one another, and biochemical signaling. The University of Arizona researchers discovered that when mechanical force disappears — for example at a wound site where cells have been destroyed, leaving empty, cell-free space — a protein molecule, known as DII4, coordinates nearby cells to migrate to a wound site and collectively cover it with new tissue. What’s more, they found, this process causes identical cells to specialize into leader and follower cells. Researchers had previously assumed leader cells formed randomly. “The results significantly increase our understanding of how tissue regeneration is regulated and advance our ability to guide these processes,” said Pak Kin Wong, UA associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and lead investigator of the research.
Wong’s team observed that when cells collectively migrate toward a wound, leader cells expressing a form of messenger RNA, or mRNA, genetic code specific to the DII4 protein emerge at the front of the pack, or migrating tip. The leader cells, in turn, send signals to follower cells, which do not express the genetic messenger. This elaborate autoregulatory system remains activated until new tissue has covered a wound.
The same migration processes for wound healing and tissue development also apply to cancer spreading, the researchers noted. The combination of mechanical force and genetic signaling stimulates cancer cells to collectively migrate and invade healthy tissue.
Biologists have known of the existence of leader cells and the DII4 protein for some years and have suspected they might be important in collective cell migration. But precisely how leader cells formed, what controlled their behavior, and their genetic makeup were all mysteries — until now. “Knowing the genetic makeup of leader cells and understanding their formation and behavior gives us the ability to alter cell migration,” Wong said.
With this new knowledge, researchers can re-create, at the cellular and molecular levels, the chain of events that brings about the formation of human tissue. Bioengineers now have the information they need to direct normal cells to heal damaged tissue, or prevent cancer cells from invading healthy tissue.
Source: www.eurekalert.org
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