Jeong Uiechan, Yoon Sunhee, Park Sungjin, Jeon Tae-Joon, Kim Sun Min
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea.
Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea.
Micromachines (Basel). 2024 Apr 10;15(4):511. doi: 10.3390/mi15040511.
In this study, we created a 3D Artificial Skin Platform that can be used for the treatment of pigmentation by artificially realizing the skin of pregnant women. For the stable realization of 3D artificial skin, a bilayer hydrogel composed of collagen type I and fibrin was designed and applied to the study to reduce the tension-induced contraction of collagen type I, the extracellular matrix (ECM) of artificial skin, by dynamic culture. Oxygen concentration and 17β-Estradiol (E2) concentration, which are highly related to melanin production, were selected as parameters of the pregnancy environment and applied to cell culture. Oxygen concentration, which is locally reduced in the first trimester (2.5-3%), and E2, which is upregulated in the third trimester, were applied to the cell culture process. We analyzed whether the 3D artificial skin implemented in the 3D Artificial Skin Platform could better represent the tendency of melanin expression in pregnant women than cells cultured under the same conditions in 2D. The expression levels of melanin and melanin-related genes in the 2D cell culture did not show a significant trend that was similar to the melanin expression trend in pregnant women. However, the 3D artificial skin platform showed a significant trend towards a 2-6-fold increase in melanin expression in response to low oxygen concentrations (2.5%) and E2 concentrations (17 ng/mL), which was similar to the trend in pregnant women in vivo. These results suggest that 3D artificial skin cultured on the Artificial Skin Platform has the potential to be used as a substitute for human pregnant skin in various research fields related to the treatment of pigmentation.
在本研究中，我们创建了一个3D人工皮肤平台，通过人工模拟孕妇皮肤来用于色素沉着治疗。为了稳定实现3D人工皮肤，设计了一种由I型胶原蛋白和纤维蛋白组成的双层水凝胶，并将其应用于研究中，通过动态培养来减少I型胶原蛋白（人工皮肤的细胞外基质）因张力引起的收缩。选择与黑色素生成高度相关的氧气浓度和17β-雌二醇（E2）浓度作为妊娠环境的参数，并应用于细胞培养。将孕早期局部降低的氧气浓度（2.5 - 3%）和孕晚期上调的E2应用于细胞培养过程。我们分析了3D人工皮肤平台中实现的3D人工皮肤是否比在相同条件下二维培养的细胞能更好地体现孕妇黑色素表达的趋势。二维细胞培养中黑色素及黑色素相关基因的表达水平未显示出与孕妇黑色素表达趋势相似的显著趋势。然而，3D人工皮肤平台在低氧浓度（2.5%）和E2浓度（17 ng/mL）下黑色素表达有显著增加趋势，增加了2 - 6倍，这与孕妇体内的趋势相似。这些结果表明，在人工皮肤平台上培养的3D人工皮肤有潜力在与色素沉着治疗相关的各种研究领域中替代人类孕妇皮肤。
