Collagen fiber architecture of a cultured dermal tissue.
Advances in tissue engineering have led to the development of artificially grown dermal tissues for use in burn and ulcer treatments. An example of such an engineered tissue is Dermagraft, which is grown using human neonatal fibroblasts on rectangular sheets of biodegradable mesh. Using small angle light scattering (SALS), we quantified the collagen fiber architecture of Dermagraft with the mesh scaffold contributions removed through the use of a structurally based optical model. Dermagraft collagen fibers were found to have a preferred direction nearly parallel to the long dimension of the kite-shaped mesh opening with small spatial variations over the mesh. This study demonstrated the utility of SALS as a rapid and inexpensive technique for the evaluation of gross collagen fiber architecture in engineered tissues.
Sacks
M S
MS
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gobles, FL 33124-0621, USA. msacks@coeds.eng.miami.edu
Chuong
C J
CJ
Petroll
W M
WM
Kwan
M
M
Halberstadt
C
C
D002478:Cells, Cultured / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003094:Collagen / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008027:Light; D011098:Polyglactin 910; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D017768:Skin, Artificial
D011098:Polyglactin 910; D003094:Collagen