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Skin wound healing in obese and lean male adolescent rats submitted to pre-weaning litter size manipulation
F Sabol1, N Bobrov2, M Novotný3
1Clinic of Heart Surgery, East-Slovak Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Košice, Slovak Republic.
Insights
Early postnatal over-nutrition in rats led to increased body weight and insulin levels. This condition slightly improved skin wound healing, including faster epidermis regeneration and increased tensile strength.
Area of Science:
- Physiology
- Developmental Biology
- Wound Healing Research
Background:
- Early life nutrition significantly impacts long-term health and metabolic processes.
- Understanding the effects of early over-nutrition on tissue repair is crucial for metabolic homeostasis research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of early postnatal over-nutrition on skin wound healing in male Sprague-Dawley rats.
- To explore the relationship between early-life nutritional status and wound repair mechanisms.
Main Methods:
- Induction of over-nutrition by adjusting litter size to four pups per nest (small litters) versus normal litters (10 pups).
- Performance of full-thickness skin incisions and excisions on 30 male Sprague-Dawley rats.
- Histological examination and wound tensile strength measurements at 2, 6, and 14 days post-surgery.
Main Results:
- Rats from small nests exhibited enhanced plasma insulin levels and increased body weight/fat parameters.
- Over-nourished rats showed improved epidermis regeneration and accelerated demarcation line formation.
- Increased wound tensile strength was observed in rats subjected to early postnatal over-nutrition.
Conclusions:
- Early postnatal over-nutrition in this rat model is associated with improved skin wound healing parameters.
- The small nest model provides a basis for studying metabolic homeostasis and wound repair in juvenile obese rats.
- Further research is needed to validate these findings in other models and humans and elucidate underlying mechanisms.
Abstract:
We investigated whether early postnatal over-nutrition affects normal course of skin wound healing. To induce over-nutrition the litter size was adjusted on the first day after birth to four pups/nest (small litters). In parallel, as a control, normal nests of 10 pups/nest (normal litters) were used. For the wound healing experiment 30 male Sprague-Dawley rats, 15 from normal nests and 15 from small nests, were used. Two parallel full-thickness skin incisions and two full-thickness excisions were performed on the back of each rat. Samples for histological examination (excisions) and wound tensile strength measurement (incisions) were collected on days 2, 6, and 14 after surgery. Our study demonstrates that rats from the small nests had enhanced plasma levels of insulin and enhanced body weight/fat parameters. Furthermore, in small nests, rats that expressed the above-mentioned symptoms displayed slight improvement of epidermis regeneration, accelerated demarcation line formation, and increased wound tensile strength. From this point of view the small nest model used in the present experiment is helpful for exploration whether these acquired changes might be considered as a sufficient essential factor involved in the regulation of metabolic homeostasis and wound repair in juvenile obese male rats. Nevertheless, further studies need to be performed to verify the present findings also on other animal models and humans and to describe the exact underlying mechanism.
