The critical needs for wound coverage and healing have promoted the development of abundant commercial wound dressing products and skin substitutes. Although certain therapeutic effects have been achieved, critical limitations remain with these products. We aim to engineer an immune compatible and mechanically strong prevascularized skin dermis with highly organized interwoven extracellular matrix and vascular architecture, and evaluate the effects of the structured skin dermis on scar tissue reduction and wound healing promotion.
Schematic of creating Aligned Microvasculature. (A) Fibroblasts are seeded on a nano-grated polydimethylsiloxane substrate. The fibroblasts selfalign
themselves along the grooves, making the synthesized nanofibrous ECM in the same direction. The fibroblasts are decellularized, leaving an aligned ECM.
MSCs seeded on this acellular matrix form CD166-positive cell tracks, and also act as pericyte. ECs form microvasculature on the CD166 tracks, stabilized by
the MSCs. (B) Immunofluorescent staining of the microvasculature network. (C) Costaining of CD146 (red) and CD31 (green). The CD146 marks MSCs and CD31
marks ECs. The CD146+ cells surround the CD31+ cells.