Abstract
The in vitro tests in current research employ simple culture methods that fail to mimic the real human tissue. In this study, we report drug testing with a ‘pumpless skin-on-a-chip’ that mimics the structural and functional responses of human skin. This model is a skin equivalent constituting two layers of the skin, dermis and epidermis, developed using human primary fibroblasts and keratinocytes. Using the gravity flow device system, the medium was rotated at an angle of 15 degrees on both sides so as to circulate through the pumpless skin-on-a-chip microfluidic channel. This pumpless skin-on-a-chip is composed of upper and lower chips, and is manufactured using porous membranes so that medium can be diffused and supplied to the skin equivalent. Drug testing was performed using Curcuma longa leaf extract (CLLE), a natural product cosmetic ingredient, to evaluate the usefulness of the chip and the efficacy of the cosmetic ingredient. It was found that the skin barrier function of the skin epidermis layer is enhanced to exhibit antiaging effects. This result indicates that the pumpless skin-on-a-chip model can be potentially used not only in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries but also in clinical applications as an alternative to animal studies.
Highlights
Preclinical and clinical trials through animal experiments are essential to test the safety of novel drugs prior to their release
The skin equivalent 3D culture system was prepared with pumpless skin-on-a-chip using 6.12 mg Rat Tail Collagen (RTC), and treated with under air exposure in the differentiation stage with 0, 50, and 250 μg/mL Curcuma longa leaf extract (CLLE)
A 3-day 50 μg/mL CLLE treatment was the best condition for stratum corneum formation
Summary
Preclinical and clinical trials through animal experiments are essential to test the safety of novel drugs prior to their release. These trials are expensive, time-consuming, and require ethical clearances for the experiments; the observations often differ from the human responses. Since the 2D cell culture model does not accurately mimic the in vivo 3D environment, drug response data from these studies may be inaccurate. Since a previous study on three different type 1 collagens proved that the Rat Tail Collagen (RTC) is the most appropriate support for the 3D cultures [3], we used RTC to prepare a skin model in this study
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