Cx43 as a target for improved wound healing

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Cx43 as a target for improved wound healing

Worldwide, an estimated 95 million people suffer from wounds that result in tissue loss. While acute wounds heal uneventfully, chronic wounds such as ulcers do not and often persist for months or years. In the case of the elderly, average hospital stays are increased by at least one week, resulting in an additional $1.5 billion in healthcare costs in the US alone.

A team from UCL in collaboration with Auckland University in New Zealand, have developed a revolutionary, new material which accelerates the rate of wound closure and reduces inflammation and scarring. The product, which employs an antisense technology to inhibit the production of the gap junction channel protein Cx43, is topically applied in a gel to wounds. Initial studies have focused on therapeutic treatments for skin lesions, the cornea after laser eye surgery and the spinal cord after crush injury. In each model, the results have been very promising, particularly so in the skin, where proof of principle studies in rodent and porcine models are complete. Cx43 is found ubiquitously in the dermis, and in the epidermis where its expression is reduced in the first few hours following wounding. In their recent Current Biology paper Qiu et al report that enhancing this knock-down process through the use of antisense oligodeoxynucleotides against Cx43, greatly speeds wound closure following incisional and excisional wounding. Not only is healing more rapid but scarring is considerably less evident. Qiu et al suggest that the efficacy of this treatment relates to a reduction in the infiltration of neutrophils into areas surrounding an injury site, reducing cytotoxic damage and increasing the rate of re-epithelialization. These results suggest that this novel treatment will offer an effective alternative to existing wound care products.

Entry date Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Adapted from Qiu et al, Curr Biol. 2003 Sep 30;13(19):1697-703.

Targeting Connexin43 Expression Accelerates the Rate of Wound Repair

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