Acute wound healing, which restores the essential barrier function of the skin, requires the coordination of the proliferation and migration of both keratinocytes and fibroblasts for epidermal and dermal repair, respectively. Skin healing is known to involve communication between haematopoietic cells, keratinocytes and fibroblasts, but could it involve other intradermal cell types? Barbara Schmidt and Valerie Horsley (p. 1517) have been investigating the involvement of intradermal adipocytes in skin wound healing in mice. They report that immature adipocytes are activated during the proliferative phase of acute skin wound healing and that mature adipocytes appear in healing wounds concurrently with fibroblasts. Moreover, by studying wound healing in mice with genetic defects in adipogenesis and in mice treated with pharmacological inhibitors of adipogenesis, they provide evidence that suggests that adipocytes are necessary for fibroblast recruitment and for dermal reconstruction. Further experiments are now needed to elucidate how adipocytes mediate fibroblast function during the healing of acute skin wounds and to determine whether they also aid the healing of chronic wounds.

© 2013. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
2013