title: Rheological behaviour of reconstructed skin.
abstract: Reconstructed skins have been developed to replace skin when the integrity of tissue has been compromised following severe injury, and to provide alternative methods validating the innocuousness and effectiveness of dermatological and cosmetic products. However the functional properties of tissue substitutes have not been well characterised, mainly since mechanical measurement devices have not been designed to test cell culture materials in vitro. From the mechanical standpoint, reconstructed skin is a heterogeneous multi-layer viscoelastic material. To characterise the time-dependent behaviour of reconstructed skin, spherical indentation load-relaxation tests were performed with a specific original device adapted to measure small soft tissue samples. Load-relaxation indentation tests were performed on a standard reconstructed skin model and on sub-components of the reconstructed skin (3D-scaffold alone and dermal equivalent). Generalised Maxwell and Kelvin-Voigt rheological models are proposed for analysing the mechanical behaviour of each biological tissue. The results indicated a modification of the rheological behaviour of the samples tested as a function of their biological structure. The 3D-scaffold was modelled using the one-branch Maxwell model, while the dermis equivalent and the reconstructed skin were modeled using a one-branch and a two-branch Kelvin-Voigt model, respectively. Finally, we demonstrated that skin cells contribute to global mechanical behaviour through an increase of the instantaneous relaxation function, while the 3D-scaffold alone influences the mechanical response of long relaxation times.
authors: Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamiques des Systèmes, Université de Lyon, UMR-CNRS 5513, Ecully, France; Faculté de Pharmacie de Lyon (ISPB), Laboratoire de Biophysique, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France. Electronic address: cyril.pailler-mattei@ec-lyon.fr.
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Pailler-Mattei
authors: Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamiques des Systèmes, Université de Lyon, UMR-CNRS 5513, Ecully, France.
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Laquièze
authors: Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, UMR-CNRS 5305, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Debret
authors: Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamiques des Systèmes, Université de Lyon, UMR-CNRS 5513, Ecully, France.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Tupin
authors: Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, UMR-CNRS 5305, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Aimond
authors: Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, UMR-CNRS 5305, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Sommer
authors: Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamiques des Systèmes, Université de Lyon, UMR-CNRS 5513, Ecully, France.
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Zahouani
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D020405:Dermis / Q000166:cytology; D004548:Elasticity; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans; D015603:Keratinocytes / Q000166:cytology; D055595:Mechanical Phenomena; D012212:Rheology; D012867:Skin / Q000166:cytology*; D013997:Time Factors; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds; D014783:Viscosity; D016474:Weight-Bearing
keywords: Reconstructed tissue; Relaxation tests; Rheological model; Skin fibres; Viscoelasticity