Skin tissue engineering

Cultivated epithelial autografts. as multilayered thin sheets represent the common standard in clinically applied tissue engineering substitutes. However, the unsatisfying short- and long-term results concerning mechanical stability and scarring demand for alternatives. The cultivation and transplantation of cultured autologous keratinocytes as a single-cell suspension in a fibrin sealant matrix, combined with allogenic skin grafting, was developed by our group and extensively investigated in athymic mice. Wounds can be reliably re-epithelialized after a cultivation period of 14 days. Moreover, the successful combination of a keratinocyte fibrin sealant suspension and acellular dermis; in an attempt to regenerate full-thickness skin defects in a pig animal model could be shown. The usefulness of subconfluently cultured keratinocytes, which can be harvested early and are easy to handle, is enhanced by the possibility of co-transplantation with de-cellularized dermis.