Hydrogen peroxide plays big role in skin healing: report

University of California at Los Angeles researchers recently showed that hydrogen peroxide plays a central role in wound healing.

The chemical is released by wounded skin cells and promotes sensory fiber regeneration. As a result, skin both recovers and retains an ability to detect when something is touched, they noted.

Researchers Sandra Rieger and Alvaro Sagasti found damaging skin cells anywhere in the body promoted regeneration of nearby sensory axons, showing that injured skin cells are the source of the signal.

They did this by amputating the tip of a larval zebrafish tail and using time-lapse fluorescent microscopy to monitor the behavior of nearby peripheral sensory axons.

Amputating the tail boosted axon growth and allowed axons to penetrate regions of the skin that normally repel them.

Adding hydrogen peroxide to the media of uninjured larvae mimicked the axon growth-promoting effect of damaging skin cells, they found.

Conversely, preventing the production of hydrogen peroxide blocked the ability of damaged skin to promote axon regeneration.

Combined, these results demonstrate that hydrogen peroxide is a key component of a signal that promotes axon regeneration, they said, although additional study is needed.

Full findings appear in the May 24 issue of PLoS Biology.