Chemokines and Diabetic Wound Healing

Abstract

Chemokines are critical for white blood cell recruitment to injured tissues and play an important role in normal wound healing processes. In contrast, impaired wound healing in diabetic patients is accompanied by decreased early inflammatory cell infiltration but persistence of neutrophils and macrophages in the chronic, nonhealing wounds. These changes in inflammatory cell recruitment occur in conjunction with alterations in chemokine and growth factor expression. In addition to leukocyte trafficking, many different cell types, including endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and keratinocytes, produce and respond to chemokines, and these interactions are altered in diabetic wounds. Thus, the chemokine system may have both direct and inflammatory-mediated effects on many different aspects of diabetic wound healing. The potential roles of chemokines and inflammatory or immune cells in nonhealing diabetic wounds, including impairments in growth factor expression, angiogenesis, extracellular matrix formation, and reepithelialization, are examined.