miR-29b promotes skin wound healing and reduces excessive scar formation by inhibition of the TGF-β1/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway

Jingdong Guo  ^{1   1} , Quan Lin  ^{1   1} , Ying Shao  ^{1   1} , Li Rong  ^{1   1} , Duo Zhang  ^{1   1}

Affiliation

• ¹ Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, 71 Xinmin Avenue, Changchun 130021, People’s Republic of China.

Abstract

The hypertrophic scar is a medical difficulty of humans, which has caused great pain to patients. Here, we investigated the inhibitory effect of miR-29b on scar formation. The scalded model was established in mice and miR-29b mimics or a negative control was subcutaneously injected into the injury skin. Then various molecular biological experiments were performed to assess the effect of miR-29b on scar formation. According to our present study, first, the results demonstrated that miR-29b was down-regulated in thermal injury tissue and miR-29b treatment could promote wound healing, inhibit scar formation, and alleviate histopathological morphologic alteration in scald tissues. Additionally, miR-29b treatment suppressed collagen deposition and fibrotic gene expression in scar tissues. Finally, we found that miR-29b treatment inhibited the TGF-β1/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway. Taken together, our data suggest that miR-29b treatment has an inhibitory effect against scar formation via inhibition of the TGF-β1/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway and may provide a potential molecular basis for future treatments for hypertrophic scars.

Keywords: CTGF; Smad2/3; TGF-β1; formation de cicatrices; miR-29b; scar formation.