Unhealing wound in tissues adjacent to cancer as a result of competitive interactions between the embryonic and mature tissue repair programs

Tissues adjacent to invasive cancers are characterized by wound non-healing, although wounds in normal tissues heal perfectly with the formation of a scar. Cancer-related disorders responsible for wound non-healing have serious clinical impacts, among which are restrictions for the cancer removal via surgical operation. It is not clear how a cancer is capable of deregulating the program of wound healing in normal differentiated tissues adjacent to the cancer. There is good reason to believe that, in cancers (as in fetal-like tissues), there operates a scar-free healing program similar to embryonic healing, whereas in adult tissues a scar-forming healing program of wound repair acts. It can be expected that competitive interactions between these two opposite programs will disrupt the normal development of the scar-forming healing program in normal tissues adjacent to cancer (NTAC). The aim of the present study was to check this hypothesis by comparing the differences and similarities at different stages of embryonic scar-free wound healing, adult/mature scar-forming wound healing, and cancer-induced non-healing observed in NTAC wounds. The identification of certain principal distinctions in features and key regulators between the programs acting in these types of wound repair can be useful for scar-improving wound repair.