Tazarotene gel promotes healing of deep tissue injury in mice

ABSTRACT

We investigated the efficacy and molecular mechanisms of tazarotene gel for healing deep tissue injury (DTI). We used male C57BL/6J mice to establish a DTI model. Animals were divided randomly into control, tazarotene gel and purilon gel groups. We injected 100 ul tazarotene gel, purilon gel or saline every 48 h for 20 days. Hematoxylin and eosin staining was used to observe pathological changes on days 14 and 21. The mRNA and protein expression of VEGF-α, TGF-β1 and HIF-1α were detected by qRT-PCR and western blot, respectively. Wound sites exhibited accelerated healing by 20 days in the tazarotene gel group. Fewer inflammatory cells and more granulation tissue were found in both experimental groups compared to controls. The mRNA and protein expression of VEGF-α and TGF-β1 in the experimental groups were increased compared to the control group by day 14. Expression of HIF-1α in the experimental groups was significantly less than in the controls. Tazarotene gel promoted wound healing independent of the HIF-1α/VEGF signalling pathway during tissue repair of DTI. Tazarotene and purilon gels exhibited similar macroscopic healing of wounds and expression of genes and proteins.

KEYWORDS:

• HIF-1α
• mice
• purilon
• tazarotene
• TGF-β1
• VEGF-α
• wound healing

Acknowledgments

P. P. Liu and R. J. Si contributed equally to this work.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [no. 2018M632628] provided financial assistance for our work.