Abstract
Neuronal and glial differentiation potential of skin-derived precursors is of great interest for clinical application in the treatment of neurodegenerative disease. In this sense, the pig model is a great candidate for the development of preclinical models. To the date, skin-derived precursor spheres have not been isolated from adult porcine skin. In order to optimize the protocol for isolating dermal precursor spheres from adult porcine skin, 15 porcine skin biopsies were subjected to three different processing protocols. Liberase-based digestion of ventral porcine skin gave rise to more cells with spherogenic capacity than other protocols and these spheres presented phenotypic and differentiation potential consistent with bona fide skin-derived precursor cells.
Highlights
Skin-derived precursors (SKPs) are a population of neural crest-derived multipotent precursor cells present in both human and mouse dermis, distinct from mesenchymal and central nervous system stem cells [1,2,3]
In order to assess the best protocol for isolating dermal precursor spheres from adult porcine skin, we subjected 15 porcine skin biopsies (Table 1) to three different processing protocols
Cells obtained under protocol 3 gave rise to spheres in 100% of the cases (5/5 biopsies). These results suggest that processing adult porcine ventral skin with Liberase DH generates SKP cultures in a reproducible manner, while ensuring maximum cellular yields are obtained per gram of tissue
Summary
Skin-derived precursors (SKPs) are a population of neural crest-derived multipotent precursor cells present in both human and mouse dermis, distinct from mesenchymal and central nervous system stem cells [1,2,3]. Development of safe clinical protocols usually requires preclinical validation of the in vitro results both in lower mammals (i.e rodents) and in a large animal model of disease In this sense, the pig skin shares many physiological and anatomopathological similarities to its human counterpart. Pigs and humans have relatively sparse body hair which progresses through the hair cycle independently of neighbouring follicles and, in contraposition to rodents, the mechanism of closure of partialthickness wounds proceeds largely through reepithelialization and not by wound contraction as in smaller mammals [5] For these reasons, an improvement of SKP isolation and characterization from the pig model would be of great interest to push these cells forward to the clinic. Skin-derived precursor spheres have not been isolated as such from adult porcine skin [6,7,8,9]
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