Mevastatin Promotes Healing by Targeting Caveolin-1 to Restore EGFR Signaling

We performed RNA-seq on primary human keratinocytes treated with mevastatin to identify the molecular mechanisms by which statins promote wound healing. Our results identified a mevastatin gene signature that activated and modulated the EGF signaling to trigger an anti-proliferative and pro-migratory phenotype. In addition, EGFR signaling is downregulated in chronic non-healing wounds and mevastatin was able to restore EGFR signaling by downregulating caveolin proteins, a known inhibitor of EGFR signaling and wound healing. These results demonstrate that statins may have considerable therapeutic potential for patients with chronic wounds that can be rapidly translated to clinical use. Transcriptome profiles from primary human keratinocytes treated with mevastatin generated by deep sequencing using Illumina NextSeq500.