Tissue repair genes: the TiRe database and its implication for skin wound healing

// Hagai Yanai 1 , Arie Budovsky 1,2 , Robi Tacutu 1 , Thomer Barzilay 1 , Amir Abramovich 1 , Rolf Ziesche 3 and Vadim E. Fraifeld 1 1 The Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Center for Multidisciplinary Research on Aging, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel 2 Judea Regional Research & Development Center, Carmel, Israel 3 Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine II, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel, Vienna, Austria Correspondence to: Vadim E. Fraifeld, email: // Keywords : wound healing, genes, database, skin, aging, Gerotarget Received : February 23, 2016 Accepted : March 18, 2016 Published : March 31, 2016 Abstract Wound healing is an inherent feature of any multicellular organism and recent years have brought about a huge amount of data regarding regular and abnormal tissue repair. Despite the accumulated knowledge, modulation of wound healing is still a major biomedical challenge, especially in advanced ages. In order to collect and systematically organize what we know about the key players in wound healing, we created the TiRe (Tissue Repair) database, an online collection of genes and proteins that were shown to directly affect skin wound healing. To date, TiRe contains 397 entries for four organisms: Mus musculus, Rattus norvegicus, Sus domesticus, and Homo sapiens . Analysis of the TiRe dataset of skin wound healing-associated genes showed that skin wound healing genes are (i) over-conserved among vertebrates, but are under-conserved in invertebrates; (ii) enriched in extracellular and immuno-inflammatory genes; and display (iii) high interconnectivity and connectivity to other proteins. The latter may provide potential therapeutic targets. In addition, a slower or faster skin wound healing is indicative of an aging or longevity phenotype only when assessed in advanced ages, but not in the young. In the long run, we aim for TiRe to be a one-station resource that provides researchers and clinicians with the essential data needed for a better understanding of the mechanisms of wound healing, designing new experiments, and the development of new therapeutic strategies. TiRe is freely available online at http://www.tiredb.org .