Amniotic Membrane Modifies the Genetic Program Induced by TGFβ, Stimulating Keratinocyte Proliferation and Migration in Chronic Wounds

Background Post-traumatic large-surface or deep wounds often cannot progress to reepithelialisation because they become irresponsive in the inflammatory stage, so intervention is necessary to provide the final sealing epidermis. Previously we have shown that Amniotic Membrane (AM) induced a robust epithelialisation in deep traumatic wounds. Methods and Findings To better understand this phenomenon, we used keratinocytes to investigate the effect of AM on chronic wounds. Using keratinocytes, we saw that AM treatment is able to exert an attenuating effect upon Smad2 and Smad3 TGF beta-induced phosphorylation while triggering the activation of several MAPK signalling pathways, including ERK and JNK1, 2. This also has a consequence for TGF beta-induced regulation on cell cycle control key players CDK1A (p21) and CDK2B (p15). The study of a wider set of TGF beta regulated genes showed that the effect of AM was not wide but very concrete for some genes. TGF beta exerted a powerful cell cycle arrest; the presence of AM however prevented TGF beta-induced cell cycle arrest. Moreover, AM induced a powerful cell migration response that correlates well with the expression of c-Jun protein at the border of the healing assay. Consistently, the treatment with AM of human chronic wounds induced a robust expression of c-Jun at the wound border. Conclusions The effect of AM on the modulation of TGF beta responses in keratinocytes that favours proliferation together with AM-induced keratinocyte migration is the perfect match that allows chronic wounds to move on from their non-healing state and progress into epithelialization. Our results may explain why the application of AM on chronic wounds is able to promote epithelialisation.