Early Healing of Oral Soft Tissues: a Clinical and Biomolecular Analysis. Part I

The wound healing is an extremely complex process. It has been observed that oral wounds mechanisms present special features. In fact, mucosal wounds demonstrated accelerated healing compared to cutaneous wounds.

Numerous comparative studies have described important differences of cellular behavior and genes expression between oral mucosal and dermal tissues. Moreover, it has been observed that the behavior of the cells is autonomous, i.e., that greatest differences seen in the genomic response after injury in skin and mucosa are derived, in part, from intrinsic differences in the genetic regulation of the cells at each site. Also, it is important to highlight the fact that it has been observed that the cellular response after wound is early, showing the first and greatest changes at 12-24 hours post injury. Moreover, a recent study has been raised the possibility of that the transcriptional regulatory networks responsible for the accelerated healing in oral mucosa are already present in the unwounded state.

In the oral mucosal tissues, the mechanisms underlying scar-less wound healing have been studied. Most studies have focused on the cellular characteristics and the molecular expression as growing factors, inflammatory mediators, etc., and have evaluated the process in later periods.

Therefore, while the biomolecular basis of the differences in oral mucosal and dermal tissues wound healing have been described, this is less well understood in the different oral soft tissue wounds.

The following points must be considered:

• The differences in the wound healing between mucosal and dermal tissues have been extensively studied through biomolecular analysis.
• The behavior of the cells is autonomous.
• The changes in the wound healing have been observed after 12-24 hours post-injury.
• The transcriptional regulatory networks responsible for the accelerated healing in oral mucosa could already be present in the unwounded state.
• The differences in the wound healing between the different oral soft tissues (alveolar mucosa, buccal gingiva and palatal tissue) has not been studied from a biomolecular point of view; however, differences in the clinical behavior and response between these three oral tissues has been reported.

The main questions are:

1. Twenty-four hours after injury: Are there differences in the gene expression and cellular behaviour between the three studied tissues?

2. The transcriptional regulatory networks responsible for the accelerated oral tissues healing:

   • Are presents in the unwounded state?
   • Are differences between the three studied oral tissues?

Deepen the knowledge in the early wound healing process of these tissues and the difference between them -evaluating the genes expression and the behavior of the cells- could allow the generation of new approaches to improve the healing of oral wounds.