Hydrogel scaffold with substrate elasticity mimicking physiological-niche promotes proliferation of functional keratinocytes

Abhijit Majumder Research Group

Skin cells gets replenished every 24 hr to keep skin healthy. However, with skin injuries such as wounds, diabetic ulcers, and severe burns, this replacement get severely affected. To overcome this issue, various companies have generated tissue grafts which originate from cadavers or skin patches from different parts of host body. Both processes are expensive and tedious. In this research, we have shown that skin stem cells (keratinocytes) can be isolated and propagated on substrates with optimum stiffness. The given substrate stiffness not only maintains the basic characteristics of keratinocytes but also help in their rapid expansion. The cells grown on gel of optimum stiffness show more efficient wound healing, and immune response. Use of such substrates may significantly reduce the time required for allogenic skin growth and thus lessen the chance of acquired infections for wound/burn patients.

Publication details: Mogha, Pankaj, Ankita Srivastava, Sushant Kumar, Sreya Das, Sanjay Kureel, Alka Dwivedi, Atharva Karulkar, et al. 2019. "Hydrogel scaffold with substrate elasticity mimicking physiological-niche promotes proliferation of functional keratinocytes". RSC Advances. 9 (18): 10174-10183.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2019/ra/c9ra00781d

Acknowledgement

Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance (Project # IA/E/11/1/500419)
Seed grant from IITB (Grant # 14IRCCSG002) and core grants from the Dept of Biotechnology to inStem.
Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White through a grant from NCRR of the NIH, grant # P40RR017447.
IRCC, IIT Bombay Bio-AFM and confocal microscopy facility.
Dr James P Butler (Harvard Medical School, Department of Medicine, Boston)