3.6. Skin collagen regeneration and orderly arrangement
Collagen is the main component of
the extracellular matrix and provides tensile strength to the
skin.(Rowley, Nagalla, Wang, & Liu) It
regulates cell proliferation and migration during wound healing and
plays an important role in wound
contraction.(Xinhua et al., 2019)
Masson’s
trichrome staining can be used to observe the deposition and morphology
of collagen to assess the overall quality of the scar area. Masson’s
trichrome staining results showed that the wound treated with RHC
exhibited deposition of ECMs on 7d, especially for collagen stained as
blue (Fig. 4E). In addition, at 21
d, more collagen deposition on the surface of wounds treated with
RHC/EGF and collagen fibers within the wound areas of the RHC/EGF were
more compact and arranged, as compared to those in the control group.
These results revealed that RHC/EGF can not only relieve wound
inflammation and elicit significant capillary growth but can also
improve epithelial thickness and collagen fiber expression, which are
beneficial to wound healing without scars.