Tissue-engineered biological dressing accelerates skin wound healing in mice via formation of provisional connective tissue

Despite recent advances in bioengineered therapies, wound healing remains a serious clinical problem. In acute full-thickness wounds, it is desirable to replace both the damaged dermis and epidermis in a single procedure. This approach requires appropriate properties of tissue-engineered dressings to support simultaneous regenerative processes in the dermis and epidermis while they are temporally separated in the natural wound healing process. In this study, a collagen-based scaffold inhabited by skin cells was employed. Its ability to stimulate the skin repair of full-thickness excisional splinting wounds in a murine model was evaluated in comparison with that of acellular collagen and commercially available gelatin porous sponge Spongostan (R). The study showed that cell-based skin equivalent promoted the immediate filling of the wound bed and provided simultaneous reorganization of the dermal component into highly vascularized granulation-like tissue and rapid epithelialization, thus improving the quality of healing. Inflammation was delayed and less pronounced. In contrast, acellular collagen and especially Spongostan (R) failed to demonstrate similar results. The porous structure of Spongostan (R) prevented effective long-term epithelialization and impeded the formation of an adequate connective tissue at the wound bed.