An Epidermal Barrier Wound Repair Pathway in Drosophila Is Mediated by grainy head

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Abstract
We used wounded Drosophila embryos to define an evolutionarily conserved pathway for repairing the epidermal surface barrier. This pathway includes a wound response enhancer from the Ddc gene that requires grainy head ( grh ) function and binding sites for the Grh transcription factor. At the signaling level, tyrosine kinase and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activities are induced in epidermal cells near wounds, and activated ERK is required for a robust wound response. The conservation of this Grh-dependent pathway suggests that the repair of insect cuticle and mammal skin is controlled by an ancient, shared control system for constructing and healing the animal body surface barrier.