Hair follicles appear to be key in reprogramming other cells in the wound, restoring the original skin architecture, instead of simply scarring. Christopher Intagliata reports.

据克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）报道，毛囊似乎是重新调配伤口中其他细胞的关键，它们恢复原始皮肤结构，而不只是简单的结痂。

播音\撰文：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：杨枭

审校：丁可含

Long ago, before Band–Aids, or even medicine of any kind, our ancestors evolved to heal cuts themselves. If you got sliced open, the body blocked it up, to prevent blood loss, water loss, infection. But as we gained that power—we sacrificed something else.

很久之前，在创可贴或是任何医药出现之前，我们的祖先就进化出自我愈合的机制。如果你被划伤，身体为了防止失血、失水、感染会将伤口闭合。但当我们获得这种力量时，我们也牺牲了其他的东西。

"So we've evolved to heal very quickly, or as quickly as possible, at the expense of regenerating skin the way it used to be." George Cotsarelis, a skin biologist at the University of Pennsylvania who studies that newly healed skin—aka scars. "And the feature of scars is that they don't have hair follicles, sweat glands or fat."

“因此为了尽快愈合伤口，我们进化成以牺牲皮肤的再生皮肤为代价。”George Cotsarelis（词典中未找到此姓氏中文译名）是宾夕法尼亚大学的一名皮肤生物学家，他研究新近愈合的皮肤——疤痕。“疤痕的特征是它们没有毛囊，汗腺或脂肪。”

In that observation lies a clue, which Cotsarelis and his team investigated in mice. They found that, when mice were injured, hair follicles sometimes regenerated at the wound site. And where hair cells appeared, fat cells did, too—the fat that sits under normal skin, as a cushion. "The bottom line is that the follicle has these almost magical powers where it's really normalizing the skin architecture." Meaning hair cells are good for reducing scarring.

Cotsarelis和他的团队在对鼠类的观察中发现了线索。他们发现，当小鼠受伤时，毛囊有时在伤口部位再生。而在毛细胞出现的地方，脂肪细胞也会出现，它们位于正常皮肤下之下起保护作用。“最重要的是，毛囊具有近乎神奇的力量，它真正在恢复皮肤组织。”这意味着毛细胞有助于减少疤痕。

In their latest work, in the journal Science, they isolated a growth factor called BMP from the hair follicles. It's a signal the follicles send to neighboring cells. They then exposed human scar cells to BMP, in a dish. They found that the growth factor did indeed help to reprogram the scar cells to fat cells, nudging them down a different developmental path. [Maksim V. Plikus et al., Regeneration of fat cells from myofibroblasts during wound healing]

他们发表于《科学》上的最新研究，从毛囊中隔离了被称为BMP的生长因子。它是一种毛囊发送给临近细胞的信号因子。然后在培养皿中，他们将人疤痕细胞暴露给BMP。他们发现生长因子确实有助于将疤痕细胞重新编码为脂肪细胞，将它们推向不同的发育路径。

Cotsarelis says a magic scar-free ointment is probably a ways off. "It's a very complicated process and knowing the timing of when to introduce things, how to introduce them, and the delivery of the compounds is important." But if we figure that out—we might someday be able to coax our skin to heal itself…without leaving visible evidence behind.

Cotsarelis表示一种神奇的无疤痕软膏将可能实现。“伤口愈合是一个非常复杂的过程，知道什么时候什么细胞参与，如何参与反应，以及化合物的传递都很重要。”但是，如果我们弄清楚这一过程，有一天将会实现皮肤不留伤痕的自我修复。