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.