Biologists at UC San Diego have identified eight genes never
before suspected to play a role in wound healing that are called into action
near the areas where wounds occur.
Their discovery, detailed this week in the open-access
journal PLOS ONE, was made in the laboratory fruit fly Drosophila. But the
biologists say many of the same genes that regulate biological processes in the
hard exoskeleton, or cuticle, of Drosophila also control processes in human
skin. That makes them attractive candidates for new kinds of wound-healing
drugs or other compounds that could be used to treat skin ailments.