Skin fibroblast lineage tracing reveals layer-specific cooperation in wound repair.

Layer-specific skin fibroblasts contribute to wound repair with distinct spatiotemporal patterns across wound severities.

• Why it matters: Understanding fibroblast heterogeneity and their specific roles during wound healing is limited by the lack of genetic tools to trace individual layers, hindering targeted therapies.
• What they did: A dual-recombinase strategy was used to develop genetic lineage-tracing tools for all five skin fibroblast layers, revealing their contributions during wound healing in mice.
• The result: Deep wounds show a three-stage fibroblast contribution, superficial wounds show two, and fibroblasts reorganize into a hierarchy resembling their original spatial distribution, informing potential therapies.