Electric fields promote wound healing
Weak electric fields, which occur naturally when the skin is injured, direct wound-healing cells to the injured tissue site, scientists from the University of Aberdeen confirm. The researchers had been able to use electrical fields of similar strength to induce directional movements in cells in cultures and in living tissue from test animals and humans.
Through fluorescence labeling experiments, they recognized that the cell initiate similar mechanisms in response to electric field lines as with a chemical orientation towards an attractant substance. Depending on the direction of an artificially superimposed field, wounds also close more quickly or more slowly, the researchers discovered. Two genes of the migratory repair cells, p110gamma and PTEN, play a crucial role in the perception of the field and the subsequent electrotaxis, Min Zhao and his colleagues continue. Mutations in these genes, which are also important for chemotaxis, significantly reduced the cells' ability to orient themselves.
The healing influence of weak electric fields on wounds was described by the German physiologist Emil Du-Bois Reymond more than 150 years ago. It was later clarified that injuries to epithelial cells cause endogenous fields because strong, directed ion currents occur as a result. Min Zhao and his team have now determined that these currents can reach up to around 10 microamps per square centimeter in corneal wounds, for example. The fact that the electrical fields attract wound healing cells as an orientation anchor has been discussed for a long time, but has so far been considered unproven.
