• Aaron C Koppel, Alexi Kiss, Anna Hindes, Carole J Burns, Barry L Marmer, Gregory Goldberg, Miroslav Blumenberg, and Tatiana Efimova.
• Division of Dermatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri; and.
• Am. J. Physiol., Cell Physiol. 2014 May 15;306(10):C899-909.

AbstractProline-rich protein tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2) is a member of the focal adhesion kinase family. We used Pyk2 knockout (Pyk2-KO) mice to study the role of Pyk2 in cutaneous wound repair. We report that the rate of wound closure was delayed in Pyk2-KO compared with control mice. To examine whether impaired wound healing of Pyk2-KO mice was caused by a keratinocyte cell-autonomous defect, the capacities of primary keratinocytes from Pyk2-KO and wild-type (WT) littermates to heal scratch wounds in vitro were compared. The rate of scratch wound repair was decreased in Pyk2-KO keratinocytes compared with WT cells. Moreover, cultured human epidermal keratinocytes overexpressing the dominant-negative mutant of Pyk2 failed to heal scratch wounds. Conversely, stimulation of Pyk2-dependent signaling via WT Pyk2 overexpression induced accelerated scratch wound closure and was associated with increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, MMP-9, and MMP-10. The Pyk2-stimulated increase in the rate of scratch wound repair was abolished by coexpression of the dominant-negative mutant of PKCδ and by GM-6001, a broad-spectrum inhibitor of MMP activity. These results suggest that Pyk2 is essential for skin wound reepithelialization in vivo and in vitro and that it regulates epidermal keratinocyte migration via a pathway that requires PKCδ and MMP functions.Copyright © 2014 the American Physiological Society.

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