Immune-competent human skin disease models.
All skin diseases have an underlying immune component. Owing to differences in animal and human immunology, the majority of drugs fail in the preclinical or clinical testing phases. Therefore animal alternative methods that incorporate human immunology into in vitro skin disease models are required to move the field forward. This review summarizes the progress, using examples from fibrosis, autoimmune diseases, psoriasis, cancer and contact allergy. The emphasis is on co-cultures and 3D organotypic models. Our conclusion is that current models are inadequate and future developments with immune-competent skin-on-chip models based on induced pluripotent stem cells could provide a next generation of skin models for drug discovery and testing.
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Lambert I J C
LIJC
Bergers
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Christianne M A
CMA
Reijnders
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Lenie J
LJ
van den Broek
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Sander W
SW
Spiekstra
Department of Medical Oncology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tanja D
TD
de Gruijl
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Ester M
EM
Weijers
Department of Dermatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Oral Cell Biology, Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam and VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: s.gibbs@vumc.nl.
Susan
S
Gibbs
D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000276:immunology*