Relaxin-2 drives regenerative healing and suppresses scar formation.

ABSTRACT: Fibrotic scarring is a pervasive and unresolved challenge in medicine, leading to permanent disfigurement, impaired mobility, and severe disruption of basic skin functions including elasticity, barrier protection, and thermoregulation. Despite its far-reaching personal, clinical, and economic impact, affecting hundreds of millions worldwide after surgery, trauma, and burns, no effective treatments exist to halt or reverse pathological scar formation. Scarring results from uncontrolled TGF-b1 signaling, which drives excessive deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins such as collagen-I/III and accumulation of alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA), producing rigid, dysfunctional tissue. Here, we present a mechanistically guided approach targeting this unmet clinical need, leveraging

SUBMITTER: Williamson AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12712930 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature