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 CO 2 ablative fractional laser (CO 2 AFL) has been found to improve the appearance of surgical scars. OBJECTIVE To investigate the mechanism of early intervention with a CO 2 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 CO 2 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 CO 2 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 CO 2 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.