https://www.sciencea...l-without-scars
If you've ever wondered why scar tissue looks so different from regular skin, it's because scar tissue doesn't contain any fat cells or hair follicles.
The type of skin that regenerates over a small, superficial cut is filled with fat cells called adipocytes, just like the skin you were born with, which means the two will eventually blend into each other once the wound has healed.
But scar tissue is made up almost entirely of cells called myofibroblasts, and doesn't contain any fat cells at all. So instead of blending into the surrounding skin once the wound has fully healed, it looks completely different - permanently.
The same goes for ageing skin - as we age, we lose our adipocytes, which leads to discolouration and deep, irreversible wrinkles.
But scientists have discovered that existing myofibroblasts can actually be converted into adipocytes, which suggests that as a wound is healing, scar tissue could be converted to regenerated skin instead - something that scientists thought could only be possible in fish and amphibians.
"The findings show we have a window of opportunity after wounding to influence the tissue to regenerate rather than scar," said one of the team, Maksim Plikus, from the University of California, Irvine.
Edited by Nate-2004, 05 February 2018 - 09:58 PM.
