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A small molecule will improve the scarring process of severe wounds
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
Any damage to human skin goes through several stages during the scarring process (inflammation, proliferation, maturation and restructuring) and is a rather complex process.
Recent research by Swedish specialists has established that at certain stages of scarring, the miR-132 molecule, which regulates gene expression, plays a key role.
The team of scientists published the results of their work in one of the scientific journals.
Chronic wounds, i.e. hard to treat, long-term non-healing, which affect up to 1% of patients in developed countries alone, pose a major problem for medicine and society. Today, all treatment and preventive methods are aimed at cleaning the wound from infection, which speeds up the healing process.
Swedish experts propose using a small molecule miR-132 to treat severe wounds. In their work, the scientists focused on two stages of healing – inflammatory and proliferative.
At the inflammatory stage, the immune system activates special cells that "cleanse" the wound from foreign particles, bacteria, viruses, dead cells, etc. At the proliferative stage, the skin grows and the wound gradually heals. It is the transition from the inflammatory to the proliferative stage that is considered a critical condition, and the prognosis of the entire treatment depends on it.
The miR-132 molecule becomes maximally active at the stage of inflammation and proliferation. Taking into account the results of previous research, specialists studied in detail a group of miRNA molecules (microRNAs) that regulate the work of genes responsible for protein synthesis.
During the work, the specialists took skin from the edges of the wound for examination and studied the expression of molecules during the healing process. As a result, the scientists noticed that one of the molecules exhibited greater activity, the miR-132 molecule retained its activity throughout the inflammation stage, as well as during the epithelial growth stage (proliferation).
At the inflammatory stage, this molecule reduced the activity of immune cells in the wound, and scientists tried to reduce the activity of this molecule, which led to the activation of immune cells and an increase in the inflammatory process in the wound.
At the proliferation stage, the miR-132 molecule enhanced the growth of epithelial tissue cells, while a decrease in the molecule's activity inhibited epithelial growth and significantly slowed down the wound healing process.
According to the authors of the research project, the miR-132 molecule is irreplaceable and extremely important at the stage of transition from the inflammatory stage to proliferation. It also serves as a kind of regulator of skin scarring.
This ability of miR-132 has interested specialists from a therapeutic point of view; scientists suggest that increasing the activity of the molecule will make it possible to treat severe skin lesions and wounds that do not heal for a long time.
Now Swedish scientists have set themselves the goal of developing an effective treatment based on microRNA, which, in their opinion, will speed up the wound healing process.
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