Delayed clearance protects skin

This hypothesis asks whether postponing cell removal after a skin wound might strengthen repaired tissue. An early p16-based method, which selects cells with a repair marker, may also remove activated repair cells before their work ends. The test compares this with two methods that remove only lineage-tracked fibroblasts, cells that maintain skin support tissue, after sustained division arrest and several signs of senescence, a cell-division stop. Skin strength would be measured mechanically. If delay helps only with p16-based selection, that would support mistaken repair-cell removal. If the benefit remains after both selective methods, the hypothesis weakens. Macrophage clearance of dying cells or changes in the tissue matrix would remain possible explanations.