The contraction of granulation tissue from skin wounds was first described in the 1960s.
Later it was discovered that during tissue repair, fibroblasts undergo a change in phenotype
from their normal relatively quiescent state in which they are involved in slow turnover of the
extracellular matrix, to a proliferative and contractile phenotype termed myofibroblasts.
These cells show some of the phenotypic characteristics of smooth muscle cells and have
been shown to contract in vitro. In the 1990s, a number of researchers in different fields …