Culture of skin in diffusion chamber. Culture of whole skin in diffusion chambers in autologous rabbits: maintenance of normal epidermal differentiation.

Pieces of thinly split whole skin were placed in diffusion chambers which were implanted intraperitoneally in autologous rabbits. The condition of pretreatment of the whole skin before the intraperitoneal implantation influenced greatly its viability at the initial stage of intraperitoneal culture: The whole skin incubated at room temperature for 1 hour in phosphate buffered saline containing 1 microgram/ml hydrocortisone could maintain almost completely the original structure of its epidermis showing complete keratinization successively as in vivo; without hydrocortisone in phosphate buffered saline, the culture resulted in degeneration of upper epidermis of the whole skin; meanwhile, the quick treatment of the whole skin with the buffer containing no hydrocortisone within 10 min resulted in partly slight parakeratosis. In the course of culture, new epidermis was formed under degenerated upper epidermis, showing complete keratinization. Epidermis could maintain nearly the original structure as long as 4 weeks of culture, however at 6 and 8 weeks of culture, it appeared flattened and partly degenerated. It was noticeable that in some part, the epidermal outgrowth formed directly on the filter showed complete keratinization.