title: Biomimetic fibroblast-loaded artificial dermis with "sandwich" structure and designed gradient pore sizes promotes wound healing by favoring granulation tissue formation and wound re-epithelialization.
abstract: The structure of dermal scaffolds greatly affects the engineered tissue's functions and the activities of seeded cells. Current strategies of dermal scaffold design tend to yield a homogeneous architecture with a uniform pore size. However, the structures of the human dermis are not homogeneous in terms of either interstitial spaces or architecture at different dermal depths. In the present study, a biomimetic fibroblasts-loaded artificial dermis composed of three-layer scaffolds with different pore sizes was prepared. The three-layer scaffolds, which look similar to a sandwich, mimic the natural structures of the human dermis, which has comparatively larger pores in the outer layers and smaller pores in the middle layer. The fibroblasts-loaded artificial dermis were shown to favor wound healing by promoting granulation tissue formation and wound re-epithelialization, as determined by a histological study and Western blotting. Our data indicated that the biomimetic fibroblasts-loaded artificial dermis with "Sandwich" structure and designed gradient pore sizes may hold promise as tissue-engineered dermis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pore size effect on wound healing had been extensively studied. However, it is still not well understood whether dermal scaffolds with a uniform pore size are better than that with varied pore sizes, which are similar to human dermis as determined by our previous work. In our study, we demonstrated that the "sandwich" collagen scaffolds mimicking the natural structures of the human dermis significantly promoted wound healing compared with the "Homogeneous" scaffolds with a uniform pore size. These results may be helpful in the design of dermal scaffolds.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Yuzhen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Gaoxing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Zhihui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Haisheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Junyi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Jianglin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Sisi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China.
authors.forename: Rixing
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China. Electronic address: whe761211@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Weifeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Institute of Burn Research, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Southwest Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory for Disease Proteomics, Chongqing 400038, China. Electronic address: editorinchief@burninchina.com.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology; D020405:Dermis; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000378:metabolism / Q000637:transplantation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D016062:Porosity; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D062326:Re-Epithelialization / Q000187:drug effects*; D017768:Skin, Artificial; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Cell proliferation; Collagen scaffold; Pore size; Tissue engineering; Wound healing