Novel Model for Evaluation of Human Skin Injury

Abstract

In order to optimize wound healing of human skin, a method must be developed to reliably compare the potential for epidermal preservation and dermal fibroblast stimulation. We report a novel human skin tissue culture model developed for this purpose. An artificial skin model, consisting of human keratinocytes in the epidermis and human flbroblasts and rat-tail collagen in the dermis, was cultured using the floating collagen gel method. This model mimics in vivo human skin in terms of structure, cellular activity and function. Cultured flbroblasts form dense collagen fibrils, which repress fibroblast growth similar to that seen in vivo in the dermis. The keratinocyte layers on top of the dermal layer similarly mimic the epidermis of in vivo skin. Some laser irradiation and cryogen spray cooling exposure were applied to test the applicability of our model for characterization of epidermal and dermal wound healing.

We observed dynamic changes of the irradiated area on the artificial skin samples. Tissue regeneration can be clearly observed.

The model can be used to assess the potential for epidermal and dermal wound healing and offers several advantages over traditional animal and human skin models.