oa EDITORIAL [Hot topic: Tissue Fibrosis (Guest Editor: Shizuya Saika)]

Wound healing process may lead to undesirable outcome, tissue fibrosis or scarring, and affect the organ function in various organs. Body surface, i. e., skin, mucosa including ocular surface, directly receive external stimuli, and injured.Excess scarring in such tissues is to be prevented to maintain their function or an outward appearance of a patient. Surface epithelium and underlying mesenchymal cells, as well as inflammatory cells, are involved in the wound healing in these tissues. Wellorganized cell behaviors are essential to the restoration of normal function of the skin or ocular surface. In this mini-hot topic issue, we have three articles focusing on wound healing and fibrosis in skin and ocular surface, as well as the role of epithelial integrin on wound healing-related cytokine signaling. Understanding the mechanism of wound healing of such organs is essential to develop new prevention strategies of undesirable fibrosis or scarring.