Effect of near-infrared lasers on myofibroblast differentiation and contraction

The ability to modulate the myofibroblast phenotype will have important implications in wound healing, aging and cancer development. Our objective was to determine whether irradiation using a 980-nm laser affects the presence of myofibroblasts and cellular contractility using an attached collagen lattice model. Fibroblasts in type I collagen lattices were allowed to generate tension for 5 days in the presence or absence of laser light stimulation on day 4. Immunostaining was used to determine the total number of cells in a representative image and percentage of myofibroblasts in the same image; tension generation was determined by releasing tension and measuring diameter change over time. One treatment demonstrated a slight lattice contraction increase over control, correlated with increased cell number. Myofibroblast percentage was low and was not correlated with lattice contraction. More experiments are necessary due to limited sample size and lack of large deviations from the control.

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