[A study on the time-dependent expression of phospho-p38MAPK during the skin incised wound healing in mice]

To investigate the expressions of phospho-p38MAPK(p-p38MAPK) during the incised wound healing of the skin in mice and to explore the applicability of the time-dependent expressions of p-p38MAPK in the determination of wound age.

The expression of p-p38MAPK in incised skin wound was detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blot.

There was a minimal baseline expression of p-p38MAPK in control mouse skin. Expression of p-p38MAPK was mainly detectable in neutrophils in the wound specimens from 3hours to 12 hours after injury. Afterwards, the p-p38MAPK positive cells were mostly mononuclear cells and fibroblasts between post-injury day 1 and day 5, whereas the p-p38MAPK positive cells were mostly fibroblasts between post-injury day 7 and day 14. Morphometrically, the ratio of the p-p38MAPK positive cells to total number of the cells increased gradually in the wound specimens aged from 3 hours to 12 hours, and maximized in the wound specimens aged 12 hours with a slight decrease at 24 hours after injury. The ratio maintained at high level from post-injury day 3 to day 5, and then decreased gradually from post-injury day 7 to day 14. The expression of p-p38MAPK was observed throughout the wound healing stages by Western blot as well with a peak expression occurring between 12hour and day 3 after injury.

Our data suggest that p-p38MAPK may play an important role in inducing apoptosis of neutrophils, mononuclear cells, and fibroblasts during skin wound healing and meanwhile, p-p38MAPK may be a potentially useful marker for wound age determination.