what’s to stop the body from going completely rogue during healing? Couldn’t it just make the completely wrong cells for a scratch or something?

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what’s to stop the body from going completely rogue during healing? Couldn’t it just make the completely wrong cells for a scratch or something?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

That is certainly a possibility.
Before we get into “healing” we need to understand that the method in which a cell of a part of your body heals depends on the type of cell it is (a cell that divides rapidly, cells that rarely divide, cells that absolutely do not divide e.g adult heart cells.. or brain cells) AND the “helper cells” that were ushered to the site of injury to assist in healing (platelets , white blood cells, fibroblasts etc.)
If things are to go horribly wrong it generally happens in rapidly dividing cells, each cell has a cell cycle with “checkpoints” and if some individual has a mutation in the genes that code these checkpoints some incorrectly dividing cells (example a growing cancer) can go unchecked -> massive growth -> spreads everywhere.
Another way in which things can go “rogue” is too much of a helper cell (for example an overactive immune cell attacking parts of your own body – the premise of autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus).

I tried !

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes, it could.

For a scratch, that’s scarring. Almost skin, but not. If it makes entirely the wrong cells, cells that don’t have the structural strength of skin, then the wound fails to heal.

Other damage, such as due to exposure to certain chemicals or to radiation? That’s cancer.

Anonymous 0 Comments

So a clear example of this going wrong is keloid scarring – when a wound heals, something called granulation tissue is made, which is a mixture of connective tissue and microscopic blood vessels. In some people, too much of this forms, so the healed section basically overgrown and is full of connective tissue – collagen. That’s what makes keloid scars – those hard, raised, often shiny scars you see on some people.

We don’t completely understand why it happens, but during wound healing, our platelets in the wound release growth factors that bring in all of the other cells required to heal, make new tissue, and protect against infection. Fibroblasts are the cells responsible for making the extracellular matrix – the connective tissue needed to fix the wound and close it. Once the wound is closed, this extra extracellular matrix is normally slowly broken down – like when scars fade. If too much ECM is made, and not enough broken down, you end up with raised and firm scars.