title: Nerve regeneration and wound healing are stimulated and directed by an endogenous electrical field in vivo.
abstract: Biological roles for naturally occurring, extracellular physiological electric fields have been proposed over the past century. However, in the molecular era, many biologists presume that electric fields have little physiological relevance because there has been no unequivocal demonstration of their importance at the single-cell level in vivo. We have used an in vivo rat corneal model, which generates its own endogenous electric field and show that nerve sprouting, the direction of nerve growth and the rate of epithelial wound healing are controlled coordinately by the wound-induced electric field.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD, UK.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Forrester
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McCaig
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003315:Cornea / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology; D004560:Electricity; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012038:Regeneration; D014945:Wound Healing