Mechanism Exploration of Early Intervention With CO2 Ablative Fractional Laser to Improve Surgical Scars.

Background: Scarless healing has always been the ultimate goal of surgery. Early intervention with a CO2 ablative fractional laser (CO2 AFL) has been found to improve the appearance of surgical scars.

Objective: To investigate the mechanism of early intervention with a CO2 AFL in promoting skin wound healing and the role of follicular stem cells.

Methods: The authors used seven-week-old male LGR5-Cre, Rosa-mtmg (LGR5-mtmg), krt14-gfp-creer2, and BALBc mice to establish a skin incision model and apply CO2 AFL treatment. The histological analysis and transcriptome sequencing were performed, and the results were verified using RT-PCR and western blotting. Transgenic fluorescent mice expressing Lgr5 and K14 were used to follow the trajectories of hair follicle stem cells and epidermal stem cells during wound healing.

Results: Histological analyses revealed that after CO2 AFL treatment, the number of incision marks in the incision tissue was lower. After treatment, the number of Lgr6 and Lgr5+ hair follicle stem cells and K14 epidermal stem cells increased, and the expression of Trps1 and its downstream Wnt pathway increased.

Conclusion: Early intervention with a CO2 AFL to promote skin incision healing in mice may be achieved by activating Trps1 to regulate the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and promote hair follicle stem-cell participation in skin wound healing.