Polysaccharide-based skin scaffolds with enhanced mechanical compatibility with native human skin

We report a custom-made technique to synthesize process-convenient skin scaffolds by tuning the mechanical properties of hydrogels based on a few naturally occurring polysaccharides to match the rheological properties of previously established benchmarks, i.e., the ex vivo native human skins. We studied the mechanical parameters using oscillatory shear rheology. At small strain amplitudes, the intrinsic elastic modulus showed an almost linear dependence in the middle and a changing rate profile at the two ends with concentration of the principal hydrogel component variant, i.e., kappa (kappa)-carrageenan. At large strain amplitudes, the hydrogels demonstrated intercycle strain-softening behavior, the onset of which was directly proportional to the kappa-carrageenan concentration. We observed a concentration match for the intrinsic elastic modulus of the benchmark within this sigmoidal curve fit. Contextually, we need to explore other potent polymeric hydrogel systems to achieve mechanical affinity in terms of multiple rheological parameters derived from both strain amplitude and angular frequency sweeps. Additionally, we carried out diffusion experiments to study caffeine permeation attributes. The hydrogels show improved barrier features with increasing kappa-carrageenan concentration. In terms of the penetration flux and total cumulative amount of permeated caffeine, this enhanced mechanical adherence demonstrates comparable penetration features with the commercial 3D skin model.

Automated summary

A custom-made technique was reported to synthesize process-convenient skin scaffolds by tuning the mechanical properties of hydrogels based on naturally occurring polysaccharides to match rheological properties of native human skins. Mechanical parameters were studied using oscillatory shear rheology, showing significant findings on the influence of kappa-carrageenan concentration on the elastic modulus and intercycle strain-softening behavior of the hydrogels. Diffusion experiments on caffeine permeation attributes demonstrated improved barrier features with increasing kappa-carrageenan concentration, achieving comparable penetration features with commercial 3D skin models.