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Several growth factors that are involved in wound healing have been identified, but none has been found to be valuable therapeutically. Now, a Canadian and American team has found strong evidence that a molecule called progranulin is important in wound healing.
The investigators showed that, in mice, deliberate skin injury promptly stimulated the production of mRNA for progranulin, whereas progranulin mRNA was not produced in the uninjured state. When progranulin was applied to wounds, it increased the number of neutrophils, macrophages, and fibroblasts and stimulated the growth of new and larger blood vessels. In cell culture, progranulin stimulated the proliferation of skin fibroblasts and endothelial cells and caused the endothelial cells…