The disclosures of all publications, patents, patent application publications and books referred to in this application are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety into the subject application to more fully describe the art to which the subject invention pertains.
The development of safe and effective therapies for treating acute and chronic wounds is an issue currently of great interest to clinical scientists and industry, alike. Wound healing is an intricate, multi-stage process that relies heavily on the delivery of new cells to the wound zone. Two key elements of the wound healing response are fibroplasia and epithelialization when fibroblasts and epithelial cells, respectively, enter the wound to form a protective barrier from the external environment. This is stimulated by cell proliferation and migration from the wound edge. The identification of agents that increase the rate at which cells invade and close a wound would represent a major advance in wound healing therapeutics. Ideally, this would be a topically applied agent that stimulates the proliferation and migration of fibroblasts and wound edge epithelial cells.
The present invention addresses this need and identifies a novel target in promoting wound healing and provides therapies and assays based thereon.