Differential Inflammatory Responses in the Healing of Oral Mucosa and Skin Wounds

Wound healing is an essential process for organism survival, but differences in the healing ability between the oral mucosa and the skin have rarely been studied. The objective of this study was to evaluate the wound healing ability of oral mucosa and skin and to compare differences in their healing responses. Human gingival fibroblasts（HGF） and human skin fibroblasts（HSF）were used to characterize cell migration ability in wound healing assays. In oral mucosa and skin wound healing mouse models, mRNA levels of several inflammatory markers, IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-17, were examined in tissues collected around the wounds using RT-PCR. The healing ability of the oral mucosa as well as the skin was observed using immunohistochemistry at day 3 post-wound healing, and the expression level of IL-1β was also compared in oral mucosa and skin tissues collected around the wounds. Our findings showed that the cell migration of HSF cells was slower than HGF cells. In vivo experiments suggested that wounding induced a more significant up-regulation of IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-17 in healing oral mucosa compared with healing skin tissue. Tissue repair in oral mucosa wounds was more rap-id that in skin wounds. These results compared differences in the healing ability in response to injury in the oral mucosa and the skin for the first time and suggest that the healing ability of divergent reactions to injury may derive from expression differences among inflammatory markers.