article_snippet.sent: Cuts and wounds in the skin heal in much the same way as a zip being fastened, new microscopic images have revealed.
article_snippet.sent: Biologists have studied the healing process at a molecular level using electron microscopes to examine skin as it repairs it.
article_snippet.sent: Biologists found skin cells appear to attach to each other using tiny tubes that then pull Biologists together so Biologists interlock like a zip.
article_snippet.sent: This image on the left taken of skin cells healing a wound using an electron microscope show how cells on opposing sides (coloured green and brown) interlock together in a similar way to a zipper used on clothes.
article_snippet.sent: The image on the right shows how the would looks on the surface at this stage in the healing process .
article_snippet.sent: Dr Mikhail Eltsov, one of the scientists behind the study at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, said: 'When Dr Mikhail Eltsov, one of the scientists behind the study at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany look at it from a distance, it appears as if skin cells simply fuse to each other, but
article_snippet.sent: if we zoom in, it becomes clear that membranes, molecular machines, and other cellular components are involved. '
article_snippet.sent: Our electron microscope allows us to distinguish the molecular components in the cell that act like small machines to fuse the skin. '
article_snippet.sent: In order to visualize this orchestra of healing, a very high-resolution picture of the healing process is needed. '
article_snippet.sent: Dr Eltsov and his colleagues used cells from fruit fly embryos to study the healing processes that take place in skin.
article_snippet.sent: The study, which is published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, found that the skin cells on either side of the wound begin by 'sniffing' each other out to find their opposing partners.
article_snippet.sent: their then develop adhesive like structure made of microscopic tubes, called microtubules, that pulls their closer together.
article_snippet.sent: These attachments work a like velcro and pulls the skin cells towards the opening.
article_snippet.sent: Once the skin cells meet, the skin cells use microtubules as a scaffolding to interlock together like a zip.
article_snippet.sent: Professor Achilleas Frangakis, a microscopy expert at Goethe University Frankfurt who led the study, said: 'What was also amazing was the tremendous plasticity of the membranes in this process which managed to close the skin opening in a very short space of time. '
article_snippet.sent: When five to ten cells have found five to ten cells respective neighbors, the skin already appears normal.'
article_snippet.sent: The scientists stripped out the skin’s inner layer – the dermis – which contains blood vessels, nerve endings, hair follicles and sweat glands, to leave behind the skin’s matrix of proteins.
article_snippet.sent: Clothing zips, like the one above, hold fast by using interlocking segments and this is how skin closes a wound .
highlights_snippet.sent: Biologists at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, studied skin healing in fruit fly embryos using an electron microscope to watch what happened .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: Skin cells use microscopic tubes to pull towards each other and interlock .
  