Adenosine Receptor Ligands as Potential Therapeutic Agents for Impaired Wound Healing and Fibrosis

Wound healing is a complex process that involves a series of events including in!ammation, tissue formation, angiogenesis, and tissue remodeling. Such events must be well coordinated with each other, and highly regulated. Otherwise, the wounds do not heal, incurring into chronic wounds, or the healing process, excessively activated, leads to "brosis. Adenosine, a widely distributed nucleoside, is involved in every phase of the wound healing process through the activation of its receptors (A1, A2A, A2B, and A3 adenosine receptors ARs). Thus, targeting ARs may represent a new therapeutic approach to treating chronic wounds or "brosis, the major pathologies related to impaired wound healing.