Exosomes and MicroRNAs: Insights into Their Roles in Thermal-induced Skin Injury, Wound Healing and Scarring

Overview

Journal Mol Genet Genomics

Specialty Genetics

Date 2024 Sep 24

PMID 39317785

Authors

Yong Wang

Xiufang Zhou

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A burn is a type of injury to the skin or other tissues caused by heat, chemicals, electricity, sunlight, or radiation. Burn injuries have been proven to have the potential for long-term detrimental effects on the human body. The conventional therapeutic approaches are not able to effectively and easily heal these burn wounds completely. The main potential drawbacks of these treatments include hypertrophic scarring, contracture, infection, necrosis, allergic reactions, prolonged healing times, and unsatisfactory cosmetic results. The existence of these drawbacks and limitations in current treatment approaches necessitates the need to search for and develop better, more efficient therapies. The regenerative potential of microRNAs (miRNAs) and the exosomal miRNAs derived from various cell types, especially stem cells, offer advantages that outweigh traditional burn wound healing treatment procedures. The use of multiple types of stem cells is gaining interest due to their improved healing efficiency for various applications. Stem cells have several key distinguishing characteristics, including the ability to promote more effective and rapid healing of burn wounds, reduced inflammation levels at the wound site, and less scar tissue formation and fibrosis. In this review, we have discussed the stages of wound healing, the role of exosomes and miRNAs in improving thermal-induced wounds, and the impact of miRNAs in preventing the formation of hypertrophic scars. Research studies, pre-clinical and clinical, on the use of different cell-derived exosomal miRNAs and miRNAs for the treatment of thermal burns have been documented from the year 2000 up to the current time. Studies show that the use of different cell-derived exosomal miRNAs and miRNAs can improve the healing of burn wounds. The migration of exosomal miRNAs to the site of a wound leads to inhibition of apoptosis, induction of autophagy, re-epithelialization, granulation, regeneration of skin appendages, and angiogenesis. In conclusion, this study underscores the importance of integrating miRNA and exosome research into treatment strategies for burn injuries, paving the way for novel therapeutic approaches that could significantly improve patient outcomes and recovery times.

References

Bai Y, Han Y, Yan X, Ren J, Zeng Q, Li X . Adipose mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes stimulated by hydrogen peroxide enhanced skin flap recovery in ischemia-reperfusion injury. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2018; 500(2):310-317. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.04.065. View

Bi Q, Liu J, Wang X, Sun F . Downregulation of miR-27b promotes skin wound healing in a rat model of scald burn by promoting fibroblast proliferation. Exp Ther Med. 2020; 20(5):63. PMC: 7485298. DOI: 10.3892/etm.2020.9191. View

Cao W, Feng Y . LncRNA XIST promotes extracellular matrix synthesis, proliferation and migration by targeting miR-29b-3p/COL1A1 in human skin fibroblasts after thermal injury. Biol Res. 2019; 52(1):52. PMC: 6754631. DOI: 10.1186/s40659-019-0260-5. View

Chang H, Chen J, Ding K, Cheng T, Tang S . Highly-expressed lncRNA FOXD2-AS1 in adipose mesenchymal stem cell derived exosomes affects HaCaT cells via regulating miR-185-5p/ROCK2 axis. Adipocyte. 2023; 12(1):2173513. PMC: 9928455. DOI: 10.1080/21623945.2023.2173513. View

Chen R, Yuan W, Zheng Y, Zhu X, Jin B, Yang T . Delivery of engineered extracellular vesicles with miR-29b editing system for muscle atrophy therapy. J Nanobiotechnology. 2022; 20(1):304. PMC: 9235146. DOI: 10.1186/s12951-022-01508-4. View

Dong S, Sun Y . MicroRNA-22 may promote apoptosis and inhibit the proliferation of hypertrophic scar fibroblasts by regulating the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase/p21 pathway. Exp Ther Med. 2017; 14(4):3841-3845. PMC: 5639407. DOI: 10.3892/etm.2017.4942. View

Dyring-Andersen B, Lovendorf M, Coscia F, Santos A, Moller L, Colaco A . Spatially and cell-type resolved quantitative proteomic atlas of healthy human skin. Nat Commun. 2020; 11(1):5587. PMC: 7645789. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19383-8. View

Evers L, Bhavsar D, Mailander P . The biology of burn injury. Exp Dermatol. 2010; 19(9):777-83. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0625.2010.01105.x. View

Golchin A, Hosseinzadeh S, Ardeshirylajimi A . The exosomes released from different cell types and their effects in wound healing. J Cell Biochem. 2018; 119(7):5043-5052. DOI: 10.1002/jcb.26706. View

10.

Gras C, Ratuszny D, Hadamitzky C, Zhang H, Blasczyk R, Figueiredo C . miR-145 Contributes to Hypertrophic Scarring of the Skin by Inducing Myofibroblast Activity. Mol Med. 2015; 21:296-304. PMC: 4503650. DOI: 10.2119/molmed.2014.00172. View

11.

Guo L, Huang X, Liang P, Zhang P, Zhang M, Ren L . Role of XIST/miR-29a/LIN28A pathway in denatured dermis and human skin fibroblasts (HSFs) after thermal injury. J Cell Biochem. 2017; 119(2):1463-1474. DOI: 10.1002/jcb.26307. View

12.

He T, Zhang Y, Liu Y, Wang H, Zhang W, Liu J . MicroRNA-494 targets PTEN and suppresses PI3K/AKT pathway to alleviate hypertrophic scar formation. J Mol Histol. 2019; 50(4):315-323. DOI: 10.1007/s10735-019-09828-w. View

13.

Hu H, Jiang C, Li R, Zhao J . Comparison of endothelial cell- and endothelial progenitor cell-derived exosomes in promoting vascular endothelial cell repair. Int J Clin Exp Pathol. 2020; 12(7):2793-2800. PMC: 6949553. View

14.

Hu J, Zheng C, Sui B, Liu W, Jin Y . Mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes: A novel and potential remedy for cutaneous wound healing and regeneration. World J Stem Cells. 2022; 14(5):318-329. PMC: 9157601. DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.v14.i5.318. View

15.

Jiang T, Wang X, Wu W, Zhang F, Wu S . Let-7c miRNA Inhibits the Proliferation and Migration of Heat-Denatured Dermal Fibroblasts Through Down-Regulating HSP70. Mol Cells. 2016; 39(4):345-51. PMC: 4844942. DOI: 10.14348/molcells.2016.2336. View

16.

Jiang B, Tang Y, Wang H, Chen C, Yu W, Sun H . Down-regulation of long non-coding RNA HOTAIR promotes angiogenesis via regulating miR-126/SCEL pathways in burn wound healing. Cell Death Dis. 2020; 11(1):61. PMC: 6978466. DOI: 10.1038/s41419-020-2247-0. View

17.

Jiang X, Wang J, Deng X, Xiong F, Zhang S, Gong Z . The role of microenvironment in tumor angiogenesis. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2020; 39(1):204. PMC: 7526376. DOI: 10.1186/s13046-020-01709-5. View

18.

Kitagawa M, Kotake Y, Ohhata T . Long non-coding RNAs involved in cancer development and cell fate determination. Curr Drug Targets. 2012; 13(13):1616-21. DOI: 10.2174/138945012803530026. View

19.

Knowles A, Glass 2nd D . Keloids and Hypertrophic Scars. Dermatol Clin. 2023; 41(3):509-517. DOI: 10.1016/j.det.2023.02.010. View

20.

Kwan P, Ding J, Tredget E . MicroRNA 181b regulates decorin production by dermal fibroblasts and may be a potential therapy for hypertrophic scar. PLoS One. 2015; 10(4):e0123054. PMC: 4383602. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123054. View