By Yingzi Liu & Maksim V. Plikus
Facial wounds heal with less scarring than do comparable ones on the back. The reason relates to differences in the ability of cells to express collagen genes.
A scar is a physical mark of a healed wound and a sign of an event that can live on in memory. In Shakespeare’s play Henry V, the king makes a speech to rouse his troops on the eve of battle. He rallies them by framing scars that would be incurred in the upcoming fight as badges of honour to be shown on the conflict’s anniversary in future years. What affects whether a wound will leave a visible scar? Writing in Cell, Griffin et al.1 report that facial skin wounds in mice consistently heal with less scarring than do equally large wounds on the animals’ backs. The authors report that this difference is linked to the face having molecularly distinct fibroblast cells with restricted ability to express genes that function in scar formation.
