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1: J Cell Biol. 2007 Apr 9;177(1):151-62. Epub 2007 Apr 2.
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c-Met is essential for wound healing in the skin.

Chmielowiec J, Borowiak M, Morkel M, Stradal T, Munz B, Werner S, Wehland J, Birchmeier C, Birchmeier W.

Department of Cancer Biology, Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, 13125 Berlin, Germany.

Wound healing of the skin is a crucial regenerative process in adult mammals. We examined wound healing in conditional mutant mice, in which the c-Met gene that encodes the receptor of hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor was mutated in the epidermis by cre recombinase. c-Met-deficient keratinocytes were unable to contribute to the reepithelialization of skin wounds. In conditional c-Met mutant mice, wound closure was slightly attenuated, but occurred exclusively by a few (5%) keratinocytes that had escaped recombination. This demonstrates that the wound process selected and amplified residual cells that express a functional c-Met receptor. We also cultured primary keratinocytes from the skin of conditional c-Met mutant mice and examined them in scratch wound assays. Again, closure of scratch wounds occurred by the few remaining c-Met-positive cells. Our data show that c-Met signaling not only controls cell growth and migration during embryogenesis but is also essential for the generation of the hyperproliferative epithelium in skin wounds, and thus for a fundamental regenerative process in the adult.

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PMID: 17403932 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC2064119