Exp Dermatol. 2018 Mar 5. doi: 10.1111/exd.13524. [Epub ahead of print]

Macrophage-derived GPNMB accelerates skin healing.

Silva WN¹, Prazeres PHDM¹, Paiva AE¹, Lousado L¹, Turquetti AOM², Barreto RSN², de Alvarenga EC³, Miglino MA², Gonçalves R¹, Mintz A⁴, Birbrair A^1,2.

Abstract

Healing is a vital response important for the re-establishment of the skin integrity following injury. Delayed or aberrant dermal wound healing leads to morbidity in patients.The development of therapies to improve dermal healing would be useful. Currently, the design of efficient treatments is stalled by the lack of detailed knowledge about the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in wound healing. Recently, by using state-of-art technologies, it was revealed that macrophages signal via GPNMB to mesenchymal stem cells, accelerating skin healing. Strikingly, transplantation of macrophages expressing GPNMB improves skin healing in GPNMB-mutant mice. Additionally, topical treatment with recombinant GPNMB restored mesenchymal stem cells recruitment and accelerated wound closure in the diabetic skin. From a drug development perspective, this GPNMB is a new candidate for skin healing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.