Skin tissue engineering

The other strategy is to guide the bioengineering of skin in situ. Such a strategy needs an understanding of the cellular and molecular interactions in tissue healing and development. 

Skin substitutes are needed for wounds that arise from extensive tissue loss or damage. These may result from trauma, in particular burns, and in pathological conditions such as epidermolysis bullosa and acute exfoliative skin conditions. Such wounds may need either temporary or permanent closure with substitutes. The ideal skin substitute should 

protect the wound, maintain a moist healing environment, and control protein and electrolyte loss  

prevent local infection and provide an environment for accelerated wound healing  

be safe in terms of virus transmission and not provoke a strong immunological reaction and 

Dressings for human wounds are designed to protect, remove exudates, inhibit exogenous microorganism invasion and improve the appearance of the wound. A normal bioactive wound dressing should fulfil several criteria for its optimal function (a) biocompatibility in the absence of cytotoxicity (b) easily applied to the wound 

An ideal scaffold should possess excellent biocompatibility, controllable biodegradability and suitable mechanical characteristics. Several studies have shown that nanofibrous scaffolds can enhance cellular responses like cell adhesion and cell phenotype maintenance. Electrospun PCL nanofibrous scaffolds can be fabricated in the laboratory for the treatment of partial or full thickness skin defects. These nanofibrous wound dressings, due to their porosity and inherent properties might 

---

Stem Cell-Scaffold Constructs for Skin Tissue Engineering... 

Keywords Bone Chitosan Nerve Scaffolds Skin Tissue engineering... 

Table 1 Work done in the field of skin tissue engineering... 

Ma L, Gao CY, Mao ZW et al (2003) Collagen/chitosan porous scaffolds with improved biostability for skin tissue engineering. Biomaterials 24 4833-4841... 

Adekogbe I, Ghanem A (2005) Fabrication and characterization of DTBP-crosslinked chitosan scaffolds for skin tissue engineering. Biomaterials 26 7241-7250 Liu FI, Fan FI, Cui Y et al (2007) Effects of the controlled-released basic fibroblast growth factor from chitosan-gelatin microspheres on a chitosan-gelatin scaffold. Biomacromolecules 8 1446-1455... 

The second major role for carbohydrate in skin tissue engineering is in cell delivery. In this respect, the most widely used carbohydrate is hyaluronan. 

Kuppan, R Vasanthan, K. S. Sundaramurlhi, D. Krishnan, U. M. and Sethuraman, S. Development of poly(3-hydroxybu1yrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) fibers for skin tissue engineering effects of topography, mechanical, and chemical stimuli. Biomacromole. 2011,12(9), 3156-3165. 

Kumar, S.G., Nukavarapu, S., James, R., Nair, L.S., Laurencin, C.T., 2008. Electrospun poly(lactic acid-co-glycolic acid) scaffolds for skin tissue engineering. Biomaterials 29 (30), 4100-4107. 

I. Adekc be, A. Ghanem, Fabrication and characterization of DTBP-crosslinked chitosan scaffolds for skin tissue engineering. Biomaterials 26 (2005) 7241-7250. 

In addition to polymers, other natural molecules have been associated with polyesters in order to improve their performance. Spirulina is a microalgae which exhibits antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties and is interesting for use in skin tissue engineering, mainly in burn patients who need a greater protection barrier. Because of this, spirulina biomass was associated with poly-D,L-lactic acid (PDLLA) and electrospinning was performed. The biocompatibility in vitro assays showed that the presence of spirulina improved the biological performance of the scaffolds. These tests found that PDLLA/spirulina scaffolds exhibited more adhered stem cells on their surface and greater cellular viability than PDLLA scaffolds without spirulina [30]. 

Jin, G., Prabhakaran, M.P., and Ramakrishna, S. (2011) Stem ceii differentiation to epidermal lineages on electrospun nanofibrous substrates for skin tissue engineering. Acta Biomater.,... 

---