Aberrant wound healing and TGF-beta production in the autoimmune-prone MRL/+ mouse

Wound healing is a complex process that, involves inflammation, apoptosis, growth, and tissue remodeling. The autoimmune-prone inbred mouse strain MRL/+ manifests accelerated and extensive healing to ear punch wounds, suggesting a Pink between immune defects and wound healing. Prior studies with lupus-prone mice have shown that hematopoietic cells of lupus-prone strains can transfer disease to otherwise non-autoimmune-prone recipients. In this study we performed reciprocal bone marrow transfers between MRL and the control strain B10.BR and found that radioresistant MRL/+ host cells, rather than hematopoietic cells, are required for the healing response. Ww have also made the novel observations that, compared to normal controls, MRL/+ hematopoietic cells overproduce TGF-beta 1 and manifest impaired inflammatory responses to lipopolysaccharide challenge. These features suggest that the aberrant wound healing phenotype of MRL mice is independent of their propensity to develop autoimmunity. (C) 1999 Academic Press.