Cellular Approaches to Tissue-Engineering of Skin: A Review

Wei Long Ng Wai Yee Yeong

doi:10.4172/2157-7552.1000150

Wei Long Ng Wai Yee Yeong

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4172/2157-7552.1000150

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Abstract

The human skin is a complex organ consisting of multiple skin cells that work together to complement each other and provide essential functions such as skin barrier function, skin homeostasis and protection against the harmful ultraviolet radiation. Understanding the roles and paracrine signaling of different skin cells plus the influence of external stimuli on them are crucial towards the design of tissue-engineered skin constructs as these factors regulate the cellular behavior such as cell proliferation, migration and differentiation. Hence, an in-depth understanding of the knowledge on the epithelial-mesenchymal interactions would be valuable towards the design of a tissue-engineered skin construct.

Highlights

Human skin, which is the body's largest organ, protects us against a plethora of deleterious stressors such as chemical, mechanical and biological insults and plays a critical role in maintaining the body homeostasis
As the skin cells themselves are the primary sources of various extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules that stimulate and coordinate tissue repair, it is important to understand the roles of these cells within the native skin
The epidermal skin substitutes often result in poor healing outcomes as pre-conditioning of the underlying wound bed is important for epithelial attachment and reduced scarring

Summary

Introduction

Human skin, which is the body's largest organ, protects us against a plethora of deleterious stressors such as chemical, mechanical and biological insults and plays a critical role in maintaining the body homeostasis. Wounds are breaches in skin's structure that compromise the skin barrier functions and they can be classified into different categories such as I) epidermal, II) superficial partialthickness, III) deep partial-thickness or IV) full-thickness wounds based on the depth of injury [1]. In severe cases such as chronic ulcers or extensive burns, the wounds extend deep into the dermis region (full-thickness wounds) and they do not close without intervention. The gradual understanding of wound healing mechanisms has invoked the development of bioactive skin regeneration scaffolds that promote skin rejuvenation via the incorporation of different skin cells within tissue-engineered scaffolds. The current progress of tissue-engineered skin substitutes and the potential use of stem cell technology for skin tissue engineering will be discussed

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