Swatting flies: modelling wound healing and inflammation in Drosophila

Abstract

Aberrant wound healing can lead to a variety of human pathologies, from non-healing chronic wounds that can become dangerously infected, to exuberant fibrotic healing in which repair is accompanied by excessive inflammation. To guide therapeutic intervention, we need a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms driving tissue repair; this will require complementary wound-healing studies in several model organisms. Drosophila has been used to model genetic aspects of numerous human pathologies, and is being used increasingly to gain insight into the molecular and genetic aspects of tissue repair and inflammation, which have classically been modelled in mice or cultured cells. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of Drosophila as a wound-healing model, as well as some exciting new research opportunities that will be enabled by its use.

Genome-Wide Transcriptional Analysis of <b><i>Drosophila</i></b> Larvae Infected by Entomopathogenic Nematodes Shows Involvement of Complement, Recognition and Extracellular Matrix Proteins

“…An effect of wounding is also supported by the fact that genes in Wnt and hedgehog signaling, as well as components of the extracellular matrix, are enriched in our gene set. All three pathways have been shown to be important during wound healing acting at different stages in vertebrates and may play comparable roles in flies [37,38]. For example, the Wnt pathway may support the establishment of planar cell polarity during epidermal wound healing similar to its role during development and the extracellular matrix may play a role similar to the granulation tissue that forms after wounding in vertebrates [39].…”

JAK/STAT signalling mediates cell survival in response to tissue stress

“…Surgical excision (Bryant, 1975;Haynie and Bryant, 1976;Katsuyama et al, 2015) or cell ablation induced by pro-apoptotic transgenes (Grusche et al, 2011;Herrera et al, 2013;Smith-Bolton et al, 2009) has revealed cellular responses that promote wound healing (Sun and Irvine, 2014;Kashio et al, 2014;Razzell et al, 2011). Disc size is restored by accelerated proliferation of cells proximal (Sustar et al, 2011;Bosch et al, 2008) and distal (Herrera et al, 2013) to the wound site.…”

Wound-Induced Polyploidy Is Required for Tissue Repair

“…Over the last decade, research has identified conserved mechanisms of wound healing in embryonic and larval animals. 9,10 However, the adult remains one of the last systems to be characterized for tissue repair and regeneration in Drosophila and poses a great opportunity to examine how genetic factors impact these processes independent of the roles they serve in developmental contexts.…”