Research Article NGF Accelerates Cutaneous Wound Healing by

Copyright © 2014 Ji-Cai Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. As a well-known neurotrophic factor, nerve growth factor (NGF) has also been extensively recognized for its acceleration of healing in cutaneous wounds in both animal models and randomized clinical trials. However, the underlying mechanisms accounting for the therapeutic effect of NGF on skin wounds are not fully understood. NGF treatment significantly accelerated the rate of wound healing by promoting wound reepithelialization, the formation of granulation tissue, and collagen production. To explore the possible mechanisms of this process, the expression levels of CD68, VEGF, PCNA, and TGF