Accelerate Wound Healing by Microscale Gel Array Patch Encapsulating Defined SDF-1α Gradient

Abstract

Injuries to the skin are frequently encountered in our daily life and effective interventions are often required for the treatment of skin injury, especially for the injury with full-thickness skin defects. Despite great advancement in the exploration of therapeutic strategies over decades, the repair of wounds still remains an unmet clinical challenge. In this study, we developed a novel wound healing patch that incorporated microscale gel arrays encapsulating defined stromal cell-derived factor-1 alpha (SDF-1α) gradient. In vitro, the microscale gel provided a beneficial environment for bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) growth and significant BMSCs migrated towards immobilized SDF-1α gradient. In vivo, complete skin regeneration with very little evidence of scarring was achieved after applying SDF-1α gradient microscale gel array patch. In addition, anisotropic distribution of the collagen fibers, enhanced vascularization and reduced inflammatory cells infiltration were also observed in gradient microscale gel. The acceleration of wound healing was mainly attributed to the increased recruitment of BMSCs by SDF-1α gradient. This study demonstrated an easy, simple to use tissue engineering approach to accelerate wounding healing by recruiting endogenous stem cell to sites of injury and may also have potential implications for future therapeutic strategies in regenerative medicine.