AGE-RELATED-CHANGES IN THE TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF FIBRILLIN AND ELASTIN MESSENGER-RNAS AND PROTEINS IN ACUTE CUTANEOUS WOUNDS OF HEALTHY HUMANS

Elasticity and resilience of the shin are determined largely by the el astin framework, whose microfibrillar scaffold is composed of fibrilli n. To date, the spatial and temporal patterns of expression of human e lastin and fibrillin during wound healing have not been described, Nin ety healthy human subjects underwent 4 mm cutaneous punch biopsy mound s from the upper inner arm, which were re-excised from day 3 to 3 mont hs post-wounding, There were marked changes in the patterns of distrib ution and the amounts of elastin and fibrillin in sun-protected skin w ith ageing, However, there were no major age-related differences in th e mRNA levels for elastin, fibrillin-1 and fibrillin-2 using in situ h ybridization. Elastin and fibrillin appeared in greatest amounts in th e wounds of the elderly, particularly in females, 4 regenerative patte rn of elastin and fibrillin arcades at the dermo-epidermal junction ma s observed in the mounds of aged subjects, mRNA expression of elastin was greatest in the mounds of the aged (from day 3 to day 14 post-woun ding) with a similar spatial and temporal pattern to fibrillin-1 expre ssion; this suggests that fibrillin-1 is the major contributor to derm al elastic fibre construction during wound repair, Fibrillin-2 mas exp ressed only in the wounds of the aged and expression ws confined to ar eas proximal to dermal blood vessels, The clear-cut differences in the localization of the two members of the fibrillin family suggest that these hale well-defined roles in normal skin and wound tissue, In summ ary, these data indicate that ageing is associated with increased expr ession of fibrillin and elastin during acute mound healing and concomi tant restoration of the papillary dermal architecture with an improved quality of scarring. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.