The myofibroblast in wound healing and fibrosis: answered and unanswered questions

The discovery of the myofibroblast has allowed definition of the cell responsible for wound contraction and for the development of fibrotic changes. This review summarizes the main features of the myofibroblast and the mechanisms of myofibroblast generation. Myofibroblasts originate from a variety of cells according to the organ and the type of lesion. The mechanisms of myofibroblast contraction, which appear clearly different to those of smooth muscle cell contraction, are described. Finally, we summarize the possible strategies in order to reduce myofibroblast activities and thus influence several pathologies, such as hypertrophic scars and organ fibrosis.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  F1000Research

• Publication date

  2016-04-26

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.12688/f1000research.8190.1PMID 27158462PMCID 4847562
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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