Wound healing grafts: Omega-3 fatty acid lipid content differentiates the lipid profiles of acellular Atlantic cod skin from traditional dermal substitutes.

Abstract

Acellular fish skin (ACS) has emerged as a dermal substitute used to promote wound healing with decreased scar formation and pain relief that may be due to polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content. However, the PUFA content of ACS is still unknown. The aim of this study was to compare the total fatty acids and lipid profiles of ACS to two bovine-based grafts and standard of care human cadaver skin (HCS). Furthermore, there was also the goal to assess the capability of ACS lipid content to enhance wound healing. The fatty acid analysis was performed with GC-FID, and an LC-MS untargeted method was developed in order to the analyse the lipid profiles of the grafts was. The enhancement of wound healing by the ACS extract was investigated in vitro on HaCat cells. Our results showed that ACS had the highest content of PUFA (27.0 ± 1.43% of their total fatty acids), followed by HCS (20.6 ± 3.9%). The two grafts of bovine origin presented insignificant PUFA amounts. The majority of the PUFAs found in ACS were omega-3, and in HCS, they were omega-6. The untargeted lipidomics analysis demonstrated that ACS grafts were characterized by phosphatidylcholine containing either 20:5 or 22:6 omega-3 PUFA. The ACS lipid extract increased the HaCat cells migration and enhanced wound closure 4 hr earlier versus control. Our study demonstrated that ACS has a lipid profile that is distinct from other wound healing grafts, that PUFAs are maintained in ACS post-processing as phosphatidylcholine, and that ACS lipid content influences wound healing properties.